Kevin McCloud on Bristol’s bid to tackle housing crisis
Here Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud says what he thinks of Bristol City Council’s efforts to solve the housing crisis, the importance of creating mixed and ‘beautiful’ communities, and the difference Marvin Rees has made since he was elected in 2016.
On the Mayor of Bristol
“The one thing I’d love is for mayors to be given more control and input.
“I think what Marvin is doing is a fantastic job here, and under his leadership what we’re seeing is a change of attitude and a change of direction.
“No matter how much control mayors have, their great role is inspiration and that’s what he’s fantastic at.
“It’s thanks to him and his efforts that this scheme has advanced as quickly as it has.
“It’s been a relatively swift process through planning - it’s only single-figure years not double digits.
“If I were to ask Marvin for anything I’d ask him to stay.”
On the housing crisis
“The need in Bristol reflects a national need. I have some strong views about the housing crisis and one of those is that it’s a crisis of quality.
“We have a lame and quite skeletal planning and delivery
ers’, and a unique rent-to-buy offering. Of the rest, 25 will be up for sale in the traditional way, but the rest will be controlled by Bristol-based housing association United Communities, which will offer some at affordable rent, and others will be system in the UK.
“You visit a scheme and there might be a token social affordable component bit over there and the rest is open market housing.
“We have six tenure types on this scheme ( below) from ethical rent to open market rent, rent to home buy, shared ownership, social rent and open market to buy.
“It’s important that when we build and make places we don’t just stick one type of person in, it’s not just available for one type of person because that’s ghettoising things.
“It’s saying we should mix it all up because that’s how communities work. And it should be blind tenure - you shouldn’t be able to say, looking down a street, which house is privately owned and which is shared and rented.
On the Elderberry Walk project “As our first project in HAB’s home city of Bristol, we are more eager than ever to bring this great,
shared ownership.
United Communities boss Oona Goldsworthy said: “This project is making a real impact on the housing crisis in Bristol and I’m delighted that it is also inspiring our young people to become archi- sustainable, and affordable project to life and support the community.
“We are so pleased to meet with the young people and inspire a new generation into housing and construction as well as deliver much-needed housing and help in the wider regeneration of this neighbourhood.
“It’s a messy, dirty business putting housing up but what you hope for in the end is that you’re going to end up with something incredibly beautiful that will help people flourish and make them perhaps even happier, and that’s the magic of being able to do it well, and what we’re trying to do here is do it very well indeed.
“It’s something that Southmead completely deserves. This area has got some really fine buildings, the houses here are well-built and built with pride, and it’s that spirit that we want to embody in this place.
On getting children’s ideas on architecture
“There’s lots of stuff in between the homes too. The schoolchildren actually shamed the architects. Fruity streets and edible hedgerows and dog-walking paths, shared spaces so that the car doesn’t take absolute ownership of the space.
“It’s so important that these are places where communities can grow.”
tects and construction professionals,” she said.
“If we are going to build the number of new homes that we need as a city, then we need to be recruiting the designers and builders of the future now,” she added.