Bristol election candidates clash over rent control and new council housing

Two candidates for Bristol Central clashed over rent control and the building of new council homes in an election debate. They argued over the best way to tackle the housing crisis during an action organized by community union Acorn on Tuesday 25 June.

Only two politicians attended, Carla Denyer, the Green candidate, and Nicholas Coombes, the Liberal Democrat candidate. Two candidates were invited but did not attend, Thangam Debbonaire, the current Labor MP, and Samuel Williams, the Conservative candidate.

Meanwhile, two other candidates were not invited, but one attended and sat in the audience. Acorn said they had chosen not to invite Robert Clarke, the Reform UK candidate, nor the Women’s Party’s Kellie-Jay Keen due to “time constraints”.

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However, at the start of the event, Mr Clarke offered to attend. He said, “Since you have some empty seats, I don’t mind coming and sitting up there.” But the host laughed back and asked if he “wanted to pretend to be Thangam Debbonaire.”

Mr Coombes, a chartered town planner and newly elected councillor, said the Liberal Democrats would push for proportional representation, invest in carers, re-enter the EU single market, stop water companies dumping sewage into rivers and will decarbonize the energy supply. He said his party would build 380,000 new homes every year.

He said: “I am not a professional politician. I am a licensed urban planner specializing in energy and transport infrastructure. Just an hour and a half ago, I was doing my day job working on the development of an offshore wind farm.

“I want to use this experience to fight climate change and get Bristol moving. I was recently elected to Bristol City Council, winning the seat from the Tories. We are campaigning to re-enter the European single market, fight climate change and reform our political system.”

Ms Denyer is co-leader of the Green Party and a former councilor in Bristol. She said the Greens would push for tenants’ rights, a national home insulation programme, compassion for refugees and a £15 minimum wage. Corporations and the very rich would “pay their fair share” of taxes to raise money for massive investment in public services.

She said: “Let’s face it, Labor will form the next government and Starmer says his party is all about change. But looking back at the U-turns and broken promises, are they delivering the real change you want to see? I’m here to say we deserve better… to put pressure on the incoming Labor government to think bigger and act bolder.”

They were quizzed on rent controls, building more social housing, improving the energy efficiency of rented homes and preventing potential tenants from bidding against others.

Mrs Denyer said: “I have campaigned for rent control for a long time. We need to give local councils the powers to introduce rent controls in areas where the market is overheated, as it is in Bristol. When I moved to Bristol I rented a one bed flat for £600 a month. A one bed flat is now worth a double, easy. And yet, obviously, the income has not doubled.

“But rent control alone is not the complete solution. We also need to create more affordable housing and the Greens have a policy to create 150,000 new social homes a year from a mix of build and market buy.”

Mr Coombes added: “The solution is to build more homes. I was worried you wouldn’t talk about building more housing at any point there, but that’s the root of the problem. There aren’t enough options, a lack of competition drives up rents and means landlords can get away with poor quality.

“The answer is to build hundreds of thousands of new homes every year to drive down the value of buy-to-let homes and create more rental availability, meaning renters can choose between landlords and not the other way around. This should reduce rents and increase quality.”

The Liberal Democrats are campaigning to change the rules on mandatory purchase orders. This means councils could buy land at its current value rather than a much higher potential value, saving money on social housing projects.

Meanwhile, the Greens are calling for councils to receive much more government funding and reduce restrictions on borrowing. This would allow councils to spend much more money on building new social housing.

Speaking after the adverts, Mr Clarke, the UK Reform candidate, said he had offered to attend before the event took place but had not been given a reason for not being invited. He added that the reform would address the housing crisis by reducing immigration.

He said: “I called and said I was happy to come down. They didn’t offer me to sit on the panel, but I went down because I’m on a learning curve about a lot of different topics. I was born in Bristol and have seen many changes. When I was young, I squatted all over town. Housing has become exorbitant in this city.

“In my view, it has a lot to do with moving corporate capital. It goes without saying that immigration comes into play, something that people here are far too scared to address. Between 2021 and 2036, official figures say we will have another 14 million coming to our country.

“If this was a big country, then we could probably accommodate these people. But that won’t happen on a small island. I am very anti-globalist. Many policies come from the World Economic Forum, which bypasses Westminster. It’s the same with the UN.”