Bristol Fair Renting Campaign

About the campaign

137,000 people rent privately in Bristol, that’s almost a third of our city’s population who are impacted every day by a broken renting system. We are renters from across Bristol who have all been impacted by this broken renting system. Our goal is to make our local renting system fair. We’ve united to build solidarity, identify solutions and fight together for change.

We are demanding that Bristol’s leaders tackle:

Unaffordable rents
Poor living conditions
Discrimination in the renting system

Read our full manifesto

We're done with feeling powerless. Are you?

Sign our manifesto

A campaigner pasting a 'take action' sign onto a wall.

Struggling with your own housing issues?

Read Shelter's online advice or visit your local hub

Coming up

May 2024 – Register to vote for city-wide local elections
Local election time! And this year Bristol will be moving to a committee system. Being eligible to vote is vital.

Latest actions

Share our social activity to make sure as many people as possible hear about our campaign!

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Sign and share our manifesto

Demand Bristol’s political leaders fix private renting. Sign and share with other renters you think would support our mission.

Sign our manifesto

Get closer to the campaign

If you're a Bristol renter looking to get more involved, email us to join our group of renters leading the campaign.

Join our group of leaders

From Avonmouth to Withywood, Bristol renters are uniting to fight for better rights.

The campaign so far

Bristol renters met up and shared our housing stories and ideas for change

A group of us created a mural to expose the realities of renting in Bristol

We launched the Bristol Fair Renting Manifesto. This calls on local politicians to tackle unaffordable rents, poor conditions, and discrimination in renting. So far, more than 2,500 renters and residents have joined our campaign.

The Mayor of Bristol and another person hold up Bristol Fair Renting Campaign posters

We co-delivered a homes and communities assembly with ACORN Bristol. This held the mayoral candidates to account and aimed to push private renting up the local political agenda. Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, committed to lobby the national government for powers to control rents locally, and to tackle discrimination in private renting!

A group of people standing outside a building.

Our campaign sat on the Bristol Living Rent Commission. We represented local renters and helped gather evidence to show the situation we’re facing. We successfully influenced the Commission’s recommendations, which now call on the council to explore a range of rent control policy designs with the community, and consider whether lobbying for a rent freeze as a short-term crisis measure is an option.

The recommendations were approved by the council cabinet in October 2023, and Fair Renting Campaigner Ruth stepped up and made a speech to the mayor and cabinet, urging them to prioritise turning the recommendations into action – especially those on rent controls.

We went to Bristol Pride to champion renters knowing their rights. We teamed up with Shelter to encourage renters to find out what rights we do have and to join our campaign to fight for more rights (including a fair cost of rent).

Some of the campaign group went to IKEA to hear from families struggling to find a home to rent, due to unaffordable rents and landlords refusing to rent to them.

At the end of October, the campaign brought the local community together to paint a giant mural by the motorway making an urgent call for rent controls.