00:00Across Bristol, growing numbers of young people say getting onto the housing ladder feels further away than ever.
00:07High prices, rising rents and fierce competition for homes are leaving many locked out of the market altogether.
00:14There are also concerns about the type of housing being built with critics,
00:19arguing too much development is focused on student accommodation.
00:23We've got a national sort of crisis in terms of housing,
00:27insofar as that there are not enough houses in the right place.
00:30And I talk about houses as opposed to flats, which I think is relevant to this particular argument.
00:34The fact that sort of Bristol has become a very attractive place for investors,
00:38there's a lot of new startups, so it's a good place to get a job.
00:42But the difficulty is if you can get the job, but the accommodation is too expensive,
00:46it kind of undermines a sort of that attractiveness.
00:49Now, we've had this for sort of many years, probably for as long as I've been around in London,
00:53and indeed still sort of pertains, although London is cooling a bit.
00:58But the fact that sort of Bristol is, as I say, an attractive place is great news.
01:03Student accommodation, it tends to be city centre based,
01:06and also what it tends to be on a small footprint.
01:09So you sort of get some old industrial properties, perhaps you knock them down,
01:12and you can build a tower block, which is fine because, of course,
01:15what do students need?
01:16A bedroom and a communal space, and I'm probably oversimplifying it,
01:20but nonetheless, so there are good returns for the investors.
01:23But, of course, what you really need is more housing,
01:25and, of course, you're not going to sort of get that easily in city centres
01:28because, of course, there's not the land.
01:29It has to then be on the sort of the edges of the green belt, if you like.
01:33So, of course, you've then got the issues of commuting and so on and so forth.
01:36Figures underline just how tough that challenge has become in Bristol.
01:40Recent data from Rightmove and the Office for National Statistics
01:44shows the average Bristol house price is now well above £350,000.
01:50That's significantly higher than the south-west average.
01:54For first-time buyers, typical prices are still well over £300,000,
02:00while average earnings lag far behind.
02:03At the same time, private rents in Bristol regularly exceed £1,600 a month.
02:08It means many young adults struggle to save for a deposit
02:12while covering day-to-day costs.
02:15So, a real difficult one, and I can understand why sort of young people
02:18are sort of really sort of angered by this,
02:20because, of course, they do need the sort of places to, if you like,
02:24get on that property ladder and eventually to own the sort of the houses
02:27that they really desire.
02:28But, of course, living in sort of shared accommodation,
02:30which has been sort of the case for many in London for years, is not ideal.
02:34And, as I say, sort of Bristol sort of really needs to look at it,
02:37like all other cities.
02:38With demand for homes continuing to outstrip supply,
02:41questions remain about how Bristol can strike the right balance
02:45between new development, affordability and the needs of local communities.
02:49For many young people, the hope is that future planning decisions
02:52will make it easier not just to live in the city,
02:55but to build a long-term future here too.
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