'It's like a nightmare': Bristol parents call for council to stop housing families in converted office block

This article is by Peter Farrow, Team Leader at Shelter's Bristol hub, who has been working with families living in Imperial Apartments, a converted office block in the city. It has become notorious for its cramped conditions and lack of safety for children growing up there.

Please note this article contains references to mental health crises and violence.

The campaign so far

Shelter's Family Service has been supporting families living at Imperial Apartments since 2021. In March 2022, we identified that there were more households in need of independent housing advice and advocacy. So, we set up a regular advice drop-in for residents.

Most of the families we have spoken to were nominated to move into Imperial Apartments by Bristol City Council.

These families had experienced street homelessness, eviction or poor conditions in private rented accommodation. As a result, they reached out to Bristol City Council for support with housing. The support they were offered was a flat on a private tenancy in Imperial Apartments.

What is Imperial Apartments?

Imperial Apartments is owned and managed by a company called Caridon. It was originally an office block which was converted into flats.

Unlike most homes, conversions like this don't have to go through all the normal building rules about quality. 'Permitted development rights' (PDR) allow private companies to bypass planning permission. Typically, homes built through PDR are of worse quality and often fail to meet space standards, as the government's own research shows.

Often these converted blocks end up as temporary accommodation (TA) for homeless households. For example, the infamous Terminus House in Harlow, Essex, which is owned by the same company as Imperial Apartments.

Instead, at Imperial, the flats are let out on private tenancies with rents within the local housing allowance (LHA). LHA sets the amount of housing benefit that people on low incomes can receive.

Shelter has called on the government to end the creation of so-called 'human warehouses' through PDR. They should instead incentivise good quality conversions through the planning system.

Families report feeling cramped and unsafe

The parents we worked with told us that life at Imperial Apartments is having a severe impact on their health and wellbeing, as well as their children's.

The layout of the flats is highly unconventional, with small corridor-like living rooms and very small bedrooms.

'This flat is teeny tiny. My bedroom fits a small double, a single wardrobe, and a cot, and then there is floor space for one person. My son’s room has hardly any floor space at all. The two rooms together are the size of one average bedroom.'

The flats have little space for babies to learn to crawl and walk, which is a crucial stage for their healthy development. Similarly, for nursery and primary-age children, there is no space for them to play. Play is equally important for developing their motor skills and their cognitive development.

A local midwifery team reported that the apartments are never big enough for all the equipment needed to look after young children. This is unacceptable.

Parents also tell us that Imperial Apartments can be a frightening place for children to grow up. The flats are densely packed, so families are living in close quarters to other residents experiencing mental health crises without adequate support. The impacts on the mental health of families are severe:

'Once I was sitting in my flat, I heard like someone screaming and shouting and banging on my window. I have it recorded – the woman outside, she's asking for a knife to take the baby out of her tummy, and that is in front of my daughter.'

'My daughter just spends all day in the bedroom. She won't go out in the corridor to go anywhere on her own because she's too scared. That contributed to her mental health problems. My doctor said the accommodation is not fit to be lived in and has complained to the MP.'

'My son ended up having nightmares in Imperial, thinking that someone was going to drag him to the reception area and stab him. He's seen so much in the three years we lived there.'

A Freedom of Information request from Shelter Bristol to the local police revealed that police call-outs for anti-social behaviour (ASB) are significantly higher than for other apartment blocks of a similar size.

Between 12 October 2023 and 11 October 2024, there were 232 police callouts to Imperial Apartments. This is an average of 166 more callouts than comparable local blocks over the same period. It equates to approximately 4.5 police callouts per week.

Over half of these calls were related to ASB or crime. These figures show that there is an increased likelihood that children and families living at Imperial will witness ASB or crime than in other blocks in the area.

This situation has had knock-on effects. The health visiting service had stopped coming due to frequent reports of anti-social behaviour and concerns for staff safety. They offered visits to see residents in the community instead. As a result, there are children and families living at Imperial Apartments missing out on valuable support, which they ought to be able to access in their homes.

People believed life at Imperial Apartments would be temporary – but find themselves trapped

Every family Shelter has spoken to who Bristol City Council placed in Imperial Apartments reports that council staff told them it would be temporary accommodation. These conversations were had with residents over the phone, so unfortunately, there is no paper trail to show that they took place.

However, the frequency of these reports shows that there has been clear miscommunication from Bristol City Council to Imperial Apartments residents about their housing rights, which was misleading and deceitful.

'They told me it was on a temporary basis. That was four years ago during COVID and I guess they were just trying to house and get people off the streets and stuff. I was told it would be temporary.'

'It's like a nightmare. Once you're in there, it feels like there is no way out.'

Shelter's 2023 Living in Limbo report found homeless families living in TA in appalling conditions. These conditions are similar to those reported by families at Imperial Apartments. However, the families we work with often found that, by agreeing to move to Imperial Apartments, they lost their place on the social housing waiting list. Unlike households in TA, they were no longer legally considered homeless.

'The council found me this place, and I needed to settle. They told me that I should move there, and it felt like there was pressure to accept.'

Local housing allowance is currently frozen. This means there is little hope of families being able to move into other homes in the private rented sector elsewhere in Bristol.

Shelter have managed to get the council to return some families to the social housing waiting list due to their experiences at Imperial. Mainly, this has been in cases where a member of the household has additional needs. But the council continues to send families there while ending their homelessness duties. So, more people face losing their spots on the waiting list for scarce social homes while stuck in the block.

Bristol City Council must act

The situation for families at Imperial Apartments is unacceptable and absolutely scandalous. Bristol City Council must urgently act by amending their referral agreement with Caridon to:

1. Stop placing families at Imperial Apartments

2. Place families currently living at Imperial Apartments on band 2 on HomeChoice Bristol

3. Provide clear routes for anyone housed in Imperial Apartments to move out by:

   • maintaining their position on HomeChoice Bristol

   • giving them a meaningful package of support to help them move into alternative suitable private rented accommodation

Make sure Bristol City Council hear the voices of parents at Imperial Apartments by signing our open letter.

We'll be calling on Bristol City Council to respond to these demands during a Full Council meeting on the evening of 9 September. We'll continue to campaign for housing justice for the parents of Imperial Apartments. These types of developments are not part of the solution to the national housing crisis.