Annabel Griffiths, Bristol Socialist Party
Bristol has become the most expensive city to rent in outside of London. The average private rent is now £1,745 a month, according to Office for National Statistics figures.
It has become a rarity to speak to someone living in Bristol who hasn’t encountered either rats living in their walls, or black mould in their home, despite paying eye-watering amounts for their rent. Private landlords are increasingly detached from their tenants and rarely seem to care. People are left feeling alone and helpless. Student housing is absolutely no better – with astronomical monthly rates, shockingly poor-quality standards and useless landlords.
Undoubtedly there is a serious housing crisis in Bristol. The number of households in temporary accommodation has more than doubled in the years since the pandemic and on any given night you will have 70 people at the very least sleeping on the streets, from data collected by Housing Matters.
Bristol elected a Green council last year, after years of the Labour Party running it. Residents hoped for an alternative to the shameful job that the Labour council was doing. Shortly after this election, the Greens put forward an outrageous £51 million cuts package, which included selling off 5,000 council houses, attacked council tax support and cut domestic abuse services. After public outrage and pressure, the Greens backtracked on a couple of proposals, including reducing the number of council houses to be sold.
Green cuts
But without a strategy on how to fight for the people of Bristol, this backtracking only kicked the can down the road. The Greens say they have ‘no choice’ but to make cuts, but we say they absolutely do have a choice: to oppose the cuts and build a real fightback against the government’s council funding crisis. Refusing to implement the cuts and building a mass working-class campaign to demand the financial resources to fund our city.
That the Greens would rather implement cuts than fight to fund housing and services we need shows they are not a party with the interests of the working class at heart.
Socialist Party members fight for councils to stop the cuts, building a mass working-class campaign involving local unions and communities. In its 2024 General Election manifesto, the Green Party called for rent controls. What is to stop the Green Bristol council setting up a compulsory register of landlords, subjecting properties to regular inspection and enforcing repairs? Rents could be capped at an affordable rate too. To solve the housing crisis, the council could implement mass council house building and maintenance programmes. This could ensure good quality, secure and affordable housing for all.
