Surge in new affordable homes built in Bristol
286 affordable homes were finished between April and September last year
More new affordable homes were built in Bristol between April and September last year than in any other year “within memory”. In the first six months of the financial year, the construction of 286 affordable homes were finished, smashing records and alleviating the city’s housing crisis.
The figure of 286 is much higher than the 176 delivered in the first half of the previous year, and 227 in the year before that. According to the latest figures, 54 of these 286 homes were built by Bristol City Council, which is one of the best in the country for delivering new social housing.
The council is ranked ninth in the UK for building new social housing, and the top performing English council outside of London, according to Inside Housing. An update was given to councillors on the housing policy committee on December 19.
Green Councillor Barry Parsons, chair of the housing committee, said: “This is an extraordinary achievement. We have the highest affordable homes delivery figures at this mid-year point within memory, and certainly within the last five or six years.
“Being the top council housing delivering authority in England outside London is incredible, especially given all of the challenges that we face as an authority with limited land and high build costs.”
As a city already crammed full of buildings with little space left, a lot of new housing developments are built on “brownfield land”, which means land that has previously been built on. While this is better for the environment than building on fields in the countryside, the cost of clearing the land and making it safe for development tends to be much higher.
An example of this challenge is the empty plot of land at Redcliffe Wharf, which was previously home to the Bump Rollerdisco and before that a boat building firm. The site has been left empty for many years, despite long being earmarked for apartments and restaurants, mainly due to the complex work needed including the relocation of a Victorian water main running underground.
With building costs rising, council bosses are trying to become more flexible with their plans. Bristol is reportedly the eighth most expensive city to build in across the world. Meanwhile the government has urged the council to ramp up how many homes are built each year.
Louise Davidson, the council’s head of housing delivery, said: “We’ve got to look at every single option available to us, with every partner we can work with, and embrace not only the more traditional forms of affordable housing, but also look at those non-traditional forms with other partners. But yes, it is going to be a big task.”
One of the ever-present problems with housing in Bristol, and other issues like transport, is the balance between how much should be the city’s responsibility, and how much neighbouring councils should bear some of that responsibility too. Two previous attempts to draw up a regional housing plan across the West of England failed and fell apart in the past few years.
But a third attempt will soon be made by the West of England Combined Authority. This would encourage South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset to help share Bristol’s housing burden, and build more new homes on green fields near the city’s outskirts.
Cllr Parsons added: “Our housing need is regional and people’s lives in the West of England are not constrained by local authority boundaries. Our housing allocations ought to reflect that.”
A wider issue facing the region is the uneven spread of good jobs, which is a “significant cause” of Bristol’s housing crisis, according to Cllr Parsons. Across the region, people are attracted to Bristol because of the many employment opportunities in the city, compared to other areas.
But the West of England recently unveiled a detailed plan of how to grow the regional economy. When this is rolled out, many more good quality jobs could be provided in other parts of the region, such as around Midsomer Norton and in Weston-super-Mare, where housing is cheaper.
Over the past four years an average of 481 affordable homes have been built in Bristol annually. The highest figure was in 2023–24, when 607 new homes were built. 94 affordable homes were recently finished in Redcliffe, and as of last November, 55 of these had already been let to people on the housing waiting list.