Tenants need to earn £40,000 a year to rent one-bed city flat
AN apartment complex in Castle Park requires tenants to be earning 30 times the monthly rent cost in order to qualify to live there. Castle Park View is charging £1,310pcm for a one-bed apartment, which means renters will have to be earning £39,300 per year, and £1,650pcm for a two-bed, requiring a yearly salary of £49,500 in order to be allowed to take up a tenancy.
The complex, which includes 375 new flats and 75 of them ‘affordable,’ had set an opening date of March 7 of this year, but according to its Instagram and pictures taken at the site, it appears to be still under construction. Castle Park View has been approached for comment on exactly when it will open.
It is currently still renting out flats on its website and has specified that, in order to qualify to rent one of the apartments, renter(s) will need to earn altogether, before tax, 30 times the monthly rent. It says: “If you are a student you will need to pay your rent upfront for the full term of your tenancy, or you will need to provide a UK-based guarantor.” It also charges more for furnishings and utility bills.
All the flats in the tower block are rented out – no one can buy one – and in total there are five apartment blocks. The fifth is where 75 ‘affordable’ flats will be located, which are managed by housing association Abri. A total of 17 are shared ownership, and 58 rented through the council’s Home Choice housing waiting list.
When the Post had a look around a two-bed ‘show flat’ inside the affordable block, it revealed an almost identical set-up as the twobed flat in the main Castle Park View building, and architects and developers said they were keen to make the affordable element of the development no different from the rest of the apartment buildings.
Nick Thursby, from architect firm Chapman Taylor, said last year they wanted to avoid a phenomenon seen notoriously in London’s landmark developments, where the people living in the affordable flats are ‘ghettoised’ with separate doors and restrictions on the facilities.
“We were very conscious at the outset that we didn’t want to separate the affordable,” he said. “So I think hopefully as you walk around the outside, you wouldn’t know which was private (rent), which was shared ownership, or affordable.
“It’s got the same level of quality, fit and finish. There might be slight differences in the specifications, but the space requirements are comparable between the units, access to overall parts of the scheme are shared as well, so we’ve tried our level best to make sure that there’s no ghettoising of the affordable, it’s all one homogenous scheme,” he added.
As well as one-bed and two-bed apartments, there are studio apartments on offer from £1,120pcm. There is also a range of amenities in the complex including a gym and wellbeing studio.
The website reads: “There is a large modern gym, with a fivestorey climbing wall, which we think is the tallest in Bristol. On the 26th floor, the tallest point in Bristol, there is a Residents’ Lounge and Private Dining with breathtaking views across the city.
“There is also a wellbeing studio, work spaces, private meeting room and a 24-hour concierge service.
“There is a rooftop terrace overlooking Castle Park, and a communal central courtyard with a river of lights tracing the path of an underground river.”