'Unaffordable' Bristol rents rise to more than a third of income
To show the affordability of private renting the ONS calculated what proportion of monthly income the monthly rent was equivalent to. Affordability was then based on whether an area with private renting was equivalent to 30% or less of the median income of private renting households.According to the figures, 2018 saw the highest costs to renters in Bristol at 46.9% of household income.The number has consistently remained above 30% since 2016.The ONS said factors such as having a university - Bristol has two - or commuter routes to a larger city can help drive up rent prices.
'Landlords selling up'
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance for Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown, said landlords are continuing to sell up as they are "concerned about higher costs from more regulation and more tax"."It means more tenants chasing dwindling numbers of properties, so rents are continuing to rise," she said."At the same time, although wages have risen impressively, they have been consistently outpaced by private rental increases."The ONS said Bath and North East Somerset also had some of the least "affordable" rents outside London, with average rent costs in 2024 at 42.7% of household incomes.This is a rise since 2023, where the figure stood at 37.8%, but the figure has generally been above 40% since 2016.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
20 minutes ago
- BBC News
How a cowboy builder ripped off his customers – and got away with it
When the BBC exposed Russell McMaster as a cowboy builder last year, angry clients demanded he be 64-year-old had accepted about £220,000 from seven customers to complete home improvements over a two-year he left his customers tens of thousands out of pocket with half-built extensions and week, Ayrshire-based McMaster was due to face trial over an allegation he had defrauded a customer by pretending he would carry out construction work at his home four years he was acquitted on Wednesday when the Crown dropped the case. McMaster, it emerged, had handed back £3,000 he was alleged to have taken by did this happen – and what remedies do customers really have when left at the mercy of rogue traders? Retired social worker Jim McGinley reported McMaster to police in late 2022 after waiting more than a year for work to start at his home in Uddingston, North had paid the builder £3,000 to "secure his services" for internal a months-long wait for planning consent, Jim says that McMaster became "evasive" and stopped returning pair eventually fell out after Jim left a negative online review about his business, VJL that he had been "the victim of a con", he contacted said: "Police were very diligent and seemed very keen to present it at court… They felt that he was a fraudster, a bogus builder."McMaster – full name Alexander Russell McMaster – was charged with fraud, accused of obtaining the £3,000 by pretending he would carry out construction work at Jim's when the case called for trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court, prosecutors announced the case would be discontinued because McMaster had repaid the money in the weeks before said he had agreed to drop the case after discussions with the Crown."The reason we went to court was because we wanted to stop this happening to other people," he said."On discussion with the procurator fiscal, it became clear that perhaps taking the money was the best option. But in truth we felt, and it seems crazy, that we'd let people down." Customers left out of pocket This wasn't the first time McMaster, from Irvine, had been reported to least two of his former customers contacted Police Scotland in were among seven clients who contacted the BBC about McMaster, who traded under the company names VJL Builders and Alex McMaster those cases, customers who had contacted police were told their complaints were a "civil matter" and directed to trading Ayrshire trading standards confirmed it had received seven complaints about McMaster's businesses in of those complaints came from Chris we first interviewed him in the autumn of 2023, his loft space was a building site with exposed beams and tarpaulin covering roof we went back to his house in Bridge of Weir last week, not much had changed. Chris said McMaster was paid more than £30,000 for a loft conversion but abandoned the job midway through, leaving the Jardine family with a hole in the he also reported the matter to police and trading standards. He also had assurances from McMaster via his lawyer that he would be repaid £15, payment was made, and the loft remains as it – who is married with two children – took out extra loans to try and finish the work and said the affair had "crippled" his family's finances."It's hard to quantify how much money he owes us, because of the extra damage he did," he said."He has taken food out my kids' mouths. That's what really annoys me. It will affect us long-term because everything I do will be to pay back the debt he has left us with."Another customer, Grant Kilpatrick, told BBC Scotland News that McMaster left him with a half-finished extension and was owed between £15,000 and £20, said he reported McMaster to police and was also told it was a civil Scotland said each case was assessed on its own merits and that it provided "suitable advice" to both the Jardines and the Kilpatricks.A spokesperson said that in Grant Kilpatrick's case, inquiries had been carried out and no criminality was established. Civil action 'not always easy' The Jardines and Kilpatricks had both hired a company called VJL Builders in July 2022. The business was registered at Companies House a month both were pursuing the company, VJL was dissolved in January 2024. It had never filed Knowles, senior project lead for Advice Direct Scotland, said tackling rogue trade was challenging and that "civil action is not always easy"."Rogue traders frequently dissolve their companies to avoid liability leaving consumers with little recourse," she said."Consumers do have rights, including the ability to cancel contracts and claim refunds if they've been misled or pressured."They may also be entitled to compensation for distress - but these rights are only effective if consumers act quickly and seek advice."We urge anyone affected to report rogue trading to us and to contact their bank if money has been lost."Dr Nick McKerrell, senior law lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said there was a greater chance of a successful prosecution where it could be shown that there was no intention or ability to carry out the work, something which could be seen as a "dishonest misrepresentation".However, it was more complicated if some work was done, because it becomes more difficult to show that the builder was never going to finish the said it was not a fair fight in many of the legal cases."It's an individual against a business organisation which can adopt a number of tactics to avoid private law actions," he said. McMaster has a string of businesses listed on Companies House under different variations of his name – most of them reporting by the Daily Record newspaper in 2006 and 2013 revealed how his old businesses left customers in debt after closing Alex McMaster Builders remains active. A note on the Companies House website states that a strike-off action had been temporarily suspended after someone objected to the attempt to dissolve the BBC attempted to contact the builder between December 2023 and February to answer allegations he was a rogue did not respond until he sent a text messages stating that he was "unavailable".However, we managed to approach McMaster in person outside court this asked whether he planned reimburse his other customers and whether he shut VJL Builders down to avoid paying them away with a friend, he made no comment.
Times
20 minutes ago
- Times
That noisy distraction in the office? They're called boomers
This just in from the buzzing boomer complaints line: yet another grievance with Gen Z concerning their office etiquette. No, it's not our limit-testing approach to appropriate office attire, nor our preference for working from home. What's bugging them now is the fact we are (checks notes) too chatty. Wait, wait — not just chatty. My apologies. Apparently our innocent deskside socialising is loud, disruptive and — more than anything else — quite annoying. A tribunal has just ruled that office oldies who are disturbed by 'noisy and disruptive' younger colleagues are not in fact victims of age discrimination. The ruling came after an administrator in her sixties brought a claim against her former employers, saying it had been hard to work in the office because of the 'extreme time-wasting' and loud socialising of her co-workers, who were mostly in their twenties and thirties. Well, as a representative of the younger generation, I'd like to issue this carefully considered response: pot, kettle. I sit in an open-plan office surrounded by forty, fifty and sixty-plus colleagues. Let me tell you: there is a good reason I have noise-cancelling headphones. • How rude can you be to your colleagues? Where to begin on the long list of communal workspace no-no's I witness (tolerate) on a day-to-day basis? The tech gap is probably the most triggering place to start. As one friend put it, many of her boomer colleagues 'need to go to internet school'. This fact would be forgiven if they didn't constantly make it our problem. There is a marked lack of adaptability that verges on laziness when it comes to computer users of a certain age in my office. I am regularly pulled away from my own work to help with enormous technical feats such as logging in, using the printer or — most dreaded of all — opening Slack. That's if they bother. Some senior colleagues, refusing to download certain essential workflow programs on their own computers, come and use them on mine instead while I am expected to — quite literally — stand by. I am probably too amenable, but I am also not someone who will say no to their boss, not even if it means giving up my chair. Then there are the phones. Why are they never on silent? Why are you taking the call at your desk? Ditto that Zoom meeting, without headphones on. We have plenty of private rooms for exactly these purposes. The rest of us don't need to listen in. It's arrogant and it's boring, and it's a reason why we occasionally prefer to work at home. • Do Gen Z just not understand work meeting etiquette? Noise, generally, is an issue. Boomer office volumes are obnoxious. Where colleagues my age use WhatsApp or internal messaging systems to communicate, our elders tend to just shout from one end to the other. There is also no respect for the fact that I am clearly trying to meet a project deadline. Having my headphones on seems to be an invitation to sit down and have a meandering chat. If I see my bosses are in head-down mode, I do my best to leave them alone and divert anyone who might be on their way to distract them. When the tables are turned, they see it as an opportunity to start telling me about their kitchen renovation. Nearly all fail to read the pained look in my eyes, and I can't help but feel they think my work is simply less important. Or perhaps they just have less to do. Also overheard at my office: very loud sneezing, grunting and snorting. Misogynist, inappropriate comments. Singing. For a long time at work, I wondered why I found it hard to concentrate and if perhaps I had undiagnosed ADHD. Then I started working from home a bit more and hiding away in private offices when I needed to meet deadlines. Turns out I just needed a quiet, boomer-free place to work.
BBC News
20 minutes ago
- BBC News
Brighton's Enciso to join Strasbourg
Strasbourg are closing in on a move worth a total of £17.3m for Brighton forward Julio Enciso, with a view that he will play for Chelsea after a year in France. The 21-year-old is expected to finalise terms over a contract in the coming days with Brighton including a sell-on clause in the deal. Strasbourg are linked to Chelsea through their BlueCo ownership, led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, with the move for the Paraguay international potentially the most significant since the £65.2m takeover in 2023. There are significant connections between Chelsea and Strasbourg, who are managed by Englishman Liam Rosenior, with goalkeeper Mike Penders, Kendry Paez and Mamadou Sarr all on loan from Stamford have also signed multiple players from Chelsea, including Ishe Samuels-Smith, Mathis Amougou and Diego Moreira in the last two seasons while there is a host of ex-Premier League talent at the club from former Brighton defender Valentin Barco and former Southampton forward Sekou Alcase club qualified for the Conference League last season through a seventh-placed finish. Meanwhile, Enciso leaves Brighton having been left out of the squad for the opening day draw against Fulham. Enciso scored five goals for the Seagulls and spent the second half of last season on loan at Ipswich Town.
