Campaign Group in plea for social homes in huge regeneration plans

A GROUP of Fishponds residents are campaigning for developers to include more "affordable" rentals in their plans to build thousands of new homes in the area.

- Tristan CORK

Finding a house in Bristol is getting impossible - people are being forced to leave their own city, or to live in vans Timber Mills in Fishponds is earmarked for as many as 1,600 new homes

(Thomas Youngman Pic: Castel)

The development would be one of Bristol's biggest urban regeneration sites, and Fishponds Neighbours for Social Housing is now calling on the developers to designate half of the new homes for social rent.

At the moment, three different developers are planning to build more than 2,200 new homes on three industrial sites just south of the Bristol-Bath cycle path between Fishponds and Hillfields. But so far, only 60 of them have been earmarked to be affordable social rent homes.

The residents behind the campaign, who have set up a petition, predict this will mean the area will be gentrified and become out of the reach of most people needing homes locally. The three sites together have been named "Atlas Place", and sit either side of Lodge Causeway.

A planning application is yet to be submitted for the biggest site, named the Timber Mills, which will detail exactly how many of the 1,600 proposed homes there will be classed as affordable.

Local resident Thomas Youngman said the city council planners needed to step up and force developers to ensure at least half the new homes are for social rent.

"Finding a house in Bristol is getting impossible - rents have skyrocketed to 45% of incomes and house prices are little better," he said. "People are being forced to leave their own city, or to live in vans.