This is the moment a group of Bristol renters stormed the first meeting of a new Bristol City Council commission - after they were excluded by the Mayor. Rent campaign group ACORN burst into the first meeting of the council’s Living Rent Commission, disrupted the meeting with more than 20 members entering the boardroom where it was taking place - and stopped the meeting from happening.
Members of the community union, which is the biggest representative group for people who rent homes in Bristol, said they had not been invited to take part in the commission once it had been set up. They claimed it was because of the Mayor’s ‘personal dislike’ of their campaign.
The council set up its Living Rent Commission to investigate renters’ experiences, and to work towards making Bristol a ‘Living Rent City’. That came after a Renters Summit earlier this year, organised by housing charity Shelter, tenants’ union ACORN and Bristol City Council, which looked at ways to help ease the housing crisis for the hundreds of thousands of people in Bristol in private rented accommodation.
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But when the commission was set up, its board of 15 members did not include a representative of ACORN, despite their close working with the council in the past few years - and this year. The council said the Living Rent Commission board will ‘seek to bring together analytical data, expertise, input and lived experience testimony from a number of key city partners and representative groups, with the commission’s findings being reported to inform the council’s response to the Renters’ Reform Bill, which is going through Parliament later this year.
ACORN said it applied to have a representative on the board, and was stunned when it was told it was excluded. The council told the tenants union that it wouldn’t be invited because the council’s own cabinet member for housing, Cllr Tom Renhard, was an ACORN member himself.
A spokesperson for ACORN said they’d been told privately that Mayor Marvin Rees had ‘personally vetoed’ ACORN’s involvement. ACORN members told Bristol Live their application was rejected by the City Office due to the Mayor’s ‘personal dislike of the union because they hold those in power to account’.
ACORN have a reputation in Bristol for direct action targeting rogue landlords, politicians and developers over the housing crisis, and have had a number of notable successes in supporting tenants, stopping evictions and changing city policy on housing. Since 2016, they have successfully forced council planners to make developers publish their financial viability statements on affordable housing, got the council to adopt and support an ethical lettings charter, and encouraged the council imposing licensing conditions on landlords in many areas of the city.
ACORN members stormed City Hall this afternoon and accessed the first meeting of the commission, demanding they be given a place at the table, and stopping the meeting by reading out reasons why they should have been included. The group also formed a picket outside City Hall to publicise what they described as a ‘stitch-up’.
Elsie Bradley Middle, the co-chair of ACORN Bristol told Bristol Live: “ACORN is the largest organisation of renters in Bristol. By refusing our involvement the council is not only skewing the commission’s representation, it is willfully silencing the voices of thousands of renters across the city in a Commission that the council claims it has created to ‘empower tenants rights’.
“This decision is completely counter to the Living Rent Commission’s aims, and our exclusion is clearly an attempt to white wash its outcomes. We won’t stand for it,” she added.
She added that while Cllr Renhard - who was an active member of ACORN before becoming a councillor and being appointed head of housing - is still a member of ACORN, he wasn’t taking part in the commission representing them.
“Instead he is billed exclusively as Bristol City Council Cabinet Member for Housing Delivery and Homes,” said Elsie. “ACORN is a democratic organisation and its members have not voted for Tom Renhard to be its representative on the Commission, nor has the organisation ever been informed of his intention to represent them. ACORN has raised these points to the council in appealing its rejected application but has been ignored,” she added.
A spokesperson for Bristol City Council said: “The Living Rent Commission is being set up to explore the administration’s commitment to making Bristol a Living Rent City. Our aims are to ensure that renters across Bristol have access to good quality, affordable and secure homes and that we take action to put a stop to the spiralling rents that are destroying communities.
"The commission pools expertise and knowledge from many sources to explore solutions available to us and includes voices from across the housing sector including renters. We undertook an expression of interest process to select partners to join the commission with those selected demonstrating commitment to work in partnership for the city.
"ACORN Bristol has a track record of campaigning but has not expressed willingness to work with the range of stakeholders necessary to deliver the aims of the commission. Today’s actions are an indication of ACORN's behaviour.
“This is a groundbreaking attempt to make a positive impact on rents in the city and the views of all will be sought and considered.”
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