Bristol is in the midst of a worsening housing crisis. We need more homes of all types to help people onto the property ladder and to ensure there are enough affordable homes for those who need them.

Bristol is widely regarded as a great place to live, having been voted as the best city to live in by the Sunday Times in 2014.1 However, with demand increasingly outstripping supply, rising rents and house prices are pushing the market beyond the reach of local people – particularly those on lower or average incomes.

Our Bristol Mayor for Homes campaign brings together key partners from across the city, with the shared aim of galvanising Bristol’s next mayor to work with us to tackle the housing crisis head on. The campaign partners, including housing associations, representatives of the business community, and important advocate agencies for tenants, are calling for a commitment to real change.

The average home in Bristol costs £235,547 – 9.5 times the average local wage of £24,830.3,4,5

3,738 too few homes were built in Bristol between 2011 and 2014 to keep up with demand.2

A leading academic has projected that failure to significantly increase the number of homes we are planning to build in greater Bristol would mean that little over a quarter of people aged under 40 will be able to afford to buy a home here by 2031.6

An income of £53,839 is required to secure a typical 80% mortgage,

meaning the average Bristolian would need an annual payrise of

nearly £30,000 to buy a home.4

Around 41,000 households are expected to form in Bristol by 2037.3

Work is no guarantee of being able to pay for housing costs. In February of last year, 21.5% of housing benefit claimants in Bristol were in employment.8

Footnotes:

1 Sunday Times, Best Places to Live in Britain, 2014

2 NHF analysis of TCPA housing need estimates and DCLG household projections, compared with DCLG Table 253a

3 DCLG Table 406

4 Land registry 2014, ASHE Income table 8.1a 2014 all employees

5 ASHE Income table 8.1a 2014 all employees

6 Planning for Housing in the West of England – The Scale of the Challenge, Glen Bramley, Prof. of Urban Studies, Heriot-Watt University, 2015

7 VOA private sector rents, 2013/14

8 DWP Stat Explore Feb 2015

9 CEBR Local Economic Impact Calculator

10 West of England Joint Spatial Plan, Issues and Options for Consultation, Nov 2015

The average private rent in the city is £814 a month,7 swallowing up nearly half of people’s wages. This leaves very little disposable income to save for a home.

Building 700 affordable homes during each year of the new Mayor’s

term would add £29.9m GVA to the local economy and support 629 FTE

jobs in Bristol annually.9

By 2030 it is targeted that there will be an additional 95,000 jobs in Bristol and the surrounding areas. To support these we need a supply of homes to meet the demand.10

Bristol needs a Mayor for Homes to ensure that 2,000 new homes are built each year for the length of the next mayoral term. 700 of these need to be affordable homes.

Will you produce an action plan within your first 100 days to get Bristol building, including at least 2,800 new affordable homes by the end of your term to help meet the needs of Bristolians?

Will you take practical steps to help private renters in Bristol, particularly when it comes to secure tenancies and protection from bad living conditions?

Housing associations, together with business and community organisations, can bring forward the development of homes, as well as providing crucial private investment and the skills and expertise needed to solve the housing crisis in Bristol.

We know what the issues are that Bristol faces, and we know what solutions are needed. We now need clear action from the Mayor to deliver on these solutions and solve the housing crisis in Bristol. Bristol needs a Mayor for Homes.

www.housing.org.uk/BristolMayorForHomes#bristolmayorforhomes