PHO705: Week 3 – The Big Issues

Continuing with my exploration of Bath and within the context of our Right to the City, and the right for all to live and enjoy the city, I reached out to organisations that help people struggling to survive here. I met with Chris Taylor form the Big Issue at the Bath HQ based beneath the historic Green Park station. We started by talking about the people they help find homes he stated that majority go onto social housing, run by Curo, rather than privately rented homes. ¹ Many people in Bath struggle to pay rent with rental costs being more than 60% of average salaries. And buying in Bath has now become unattainable for many, with house prices at £300,000. As a result, there is the social impact of children remaining at home into adulthood and the strain that puts on relationships. And often this has resulted in the young finding themselves sofa surfing or sleeping out on the streets.

One of the issues Taylor highlights is with the RUH. The Royal United Hospital is one of Bath’s largest employers with over 5000 employees, servicing Bath and the towns in Northeast Somerset. However, the hospital struggles with recruiting and retaining staff. Twerton, one of the areas B&NES highlights as being a key issue in terms of socioeconomic inequality, is an area where most NHS staff live due to the lower house pricing. One way of tackling this issue as Taylor suggests:

“The creation of purpose built, affordable NHS or key worker homes would encourage more to see Bath & the RUH as a viable place to work and live.” [Taylor 2021:interview]

Figure 1. ‘Chris Taylor: Big Issue’ 2021 Tim Beale

1980’s squats were a viable option for many who couldn’t afford to rent or buy, In Bath most squats could be found along the Paragon. In 2012 new legislation was brought which put a stop to squatting. Many of these council owned buildings that were converted in to flats, are now Curo managed properties.

However there remains a large number of empty buildings across Bath, which Taylor suggests could be repurposed as accommodation such as the old Twerton railway station. Due to a combination of increasing business rates, Covid 19 and the growth of online shopping, empty retail units in the city are ever increasing. Currently there are around 177 empty units across the city.

“The council are reluctant to allow mixed use of retail units, for example a shop with two additional floors would not be allowed to use this space as accommodation either to rent out or have staff live in.”

Despite Bath being a relatively small city with just 90,000 inhabitants, it has 2 major universities, Bath Spa and the University of Bath with a combined studentship of some 20,000 student each year. A critical issue is the way they are housed.

“Over the past few years we have seen many purpose-built student accommodation going up, mostly near the centre.” [Taylor 2021:interview]

There are two issues with this type of accommodation:

1) the cost to the students is on average £260/week

2) student accommodation is exempt from rates and therefore no income for the council.

As a result this form of developing is popular with businesses, but students are reluctant to use them due to the cost, especially when looking at shared housing which is on average £120/week per student, half the cost. HMO’s (House of Multiple Occupancy), have been on the increase as landlords see a higher profit from student lets as opposed to family lets. Often a two bedroom family house will be converted to a 4 or 5 bedroom HMO, so from £1200/month to £2500 rental fee. To license a property as a HMO with B&NES council the fee is just £795 for 5 years. As a resident of Bath, renting in the Southwest outskirts, I have seen more and more houses being converted to HMOs, one house a comparable size to my own, two bedroom terrace, was converted to a six bedroom HMO with a monthly rental fee of £3350. When looking for family accommodation to rent in Bath, I found little on offer compared to student accommodation. In a recent Rightmoves search looking for a family sized house there were just 22 results, or just 7 results when looking at a rental fee of £1300². However, using a similar search for student accommodation yielded 97 results.

Figure 3. Landlords seeking bigger profits will convert family homes to HMOs. Here are three examples of 2 bedroom properties converted to squeeze out maximum profit.

“We really need to rethink how me house people in Bath. The council just aren’t willing to tackle the issues.” [Taylor 2021:interview]

In a recent news article, it was report that one of the newly built student accommodation applied for a temporary change of use to hotel due to the lack of students using it. The application was rejected after a public outcry from local residents. However, many of this type of accommodation across bath are permitted to rent rooms out during non-term times as Airbnb lets.

This was a really useful meeting and has given me a greater understanding of the key issues that I want to highlight through my practice. Over the next few weeks, I will be collaborating with Chris to document the empty spaces across Bath. I will also engage with other organisations such as Acorn, Curo housing and Julian house to build up a bigger picture of how we survive in this city.

_{¹ Curo are a not-for-profit housing association with a diverse portfolio of affordable and market rented homes. They are also responsible for what remains of the council owned housing stock.}

_{² Based on 60% of salary and the average household income as £32,000}

References

Taylor, Chris: Big Issue Sales and Outreach, interview Friday 18^th July 2021

Squatters Rights

https://www.glovers.co.uk/news-articles435.html [Accessed 23.06.2021]

https://tlio.org.uk/government-anti-squatting-law/ [Accessed 23.06.2021]

Abandoned Buildings of Bath

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/property/abandoned-buildings-bath-crying-out-3617937 [Accessed 23.06.2021]

https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/propertylistings [Accessed 23.06.2021]

https://propertylink.estatesgazette.com/commercial-property-for-rent/bath [Accessed 23.06.2021]

Student Accomodation

https://www.studentroost.co.uk/locations/bath [Accessed 23.06.2021]