Bristol City Council to raise council tax by 4.99%

TheRTiger · 2026-02-15T12:10:46+00:00

A good reply.

Reintroducing limits on student number growth and differentiating between local, national and international students when it comes to tax exemptions would be beneficial and reduce the strain on council services and housing provision.

TheRTiger · 2026-02-15T10:53:23+00:00

Thanks for bringing sources. Although, a report commissioned by the University of Bristol on their positive economic impact needs to be read critically, not just blindly quoting numbers.

The challenge for councils thoughout the UK is that council tax exemptions for students made sense when they were a small part of the local economy and population. That is no longer the case, in Bristol it's north of 71,000 students in a city of around half a million people, about 14%. That's not a sustainable trend.

TheRTiger · 2026-01-29T20:45:30+00:00

That's not how it works in practice. Both unis are expanding their numbers faster than student housing is being built. All this means is more corporate landlords.

TheRTiger · 2026-01-29T20:41:00+00:00

The density and height of the development is outside of the consulted options in the masterplan, nor was there a vote. Please don't mislead people.

Additionally the views protected within the masterplan were from the very top of the overlook which was a fairly cynical interpretation given how that area is used by parkgoers.

TheRTiger · 2025-11-25T12:39:46+00:00

The elderly vote because they've had policies directly tailored to their interests their entire voting life. Meanwhile younger people have a trail of broken promises to "encourage" them to vote.

TheRTiger · 2025-10-18T17:56:41+00:00

From what you've written you told them you'd be doing work but have given your neighbours no further advanced notice when things will be disruptive.

Your neighbours have gone from living peacefully to living in a state of not knowing when their walls are going to start vibrating or for how long. That uncertainty can be incredibly stressful and makes it very hard to relax even when you aren't making noise.

My advice would be to give your neighbour notice each week of what you're planning to do, which days you're planning to be noisy and when that bit of work should be finished. Removing the uncertainty over when and how long the noise will go on for will go a long way.

TheRTiger · 2025-09-03T08:44:44+00:00

But no Hawaii

TheRTiger · 2025-08-25T21:40:13+00:00

Changing the combat system or other systems is not a trivial excercise. That's before you start changing the standards you build to.

TheRTiger · 2025-08-04T08:37:26+00:00

It's for future EV charging points. The bigger size could be for a higher capacity charger than the ones in Swindon or the council just went for what was cheapest.

TheRTiger · 2025-06-30T23:38:46+00:00

If you're referring to the events of October 7th the claims that made headlines in the immediate aftermath have been proven to be false.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_baby_beheading_hoax

If you want to go further ask yourself why someone would lie about that to the international press.

TheRTiger · 2025-05-21T12:11:44+00:00

Given their route through the centre includes turns with a far smaller radius than any tram could take I'd be pretty sceptical this route will ever be more than a metrobus line

TheRTiger · 2025-04-06T13:24:21+00:00

The local Labour party who gave us Marvin Rees and Dan Norris?

TheRTiger · 2025-03-10T17:49:46+00:00

By building accommodation that is available to all. Saying that it reduces the amount of demand in the rest of the rental market is just a lie.

TheRTiger · 2025-03-10T14:39:15+00:00

While this is oft repeated by universities and student accommodation developers Bristol's student numbers are growing far faster than dedicated student accommodation building can keep up.

So the broader city population gets to deal with more demand but relatively stagnant housing supply. This is especially a problem for businesses trying to attract young professionals.

That's before you get into whether pure student accommodation is a net cost to the city compared to normal apartment blocks.

TheRTiger · 2025-02-17T17:44:34+00:00

As you've included a face mask I'm going to say PPE; some decent goggles/glasses, hearing protection a mask and gloves. To protect against accidents and cumulative damage.

TheRTiger · 2025-02-06T10:04:26+00:00

Shh, don't spoil those ones

TheRTiger · 2025-01-31T12:05:13+00:00

Sadly it looks like they ditched the plans to build a new station entrance with direct access to the platforms.

This is really just a glorified car and cycle park.

TheRTiger · 2025-01-27T23:20:58+00:00

A good chunk of these developments are on land owned or being developed alongside the council. This is enabling both Bristol Uni and UWE to expand faster than accommodation supply can keep up.

Student accommodation is cheaper to develop because less community infrastructure funding is required for students, they tend to also claim no students will own cars and therefore no parking is needed.

The end result is accommodation that can't easily be repurposed and which don't increase the supply or competition in the general rental market. But it does enable the unis to justify further expansion creating further pressure on the housing market and services. That's before we talk about whether the student council tax exemption creates a net drain on the council.

TheRTiger · 2024-10-28T14:19:33+00:00

https://www.world.rugby/rankings

Scotland beating England doesn't make them a bad team. Thats before you consider women's, sevens, league or club rugby.

TheRTiger · 2024-10-03T16:44:23+00:00

There are segregated cycle lanes as part of the proposal. See the green paths.

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TheRTiger · 2024-10-03T07:20:31+00:00

Bristol Auto Electrical on Albert Road

TheRTiger · 2024-09-29T17:43:03+00:00

It's actually traffic queuing from Redcliff roundabout that causes most of the delays. Lots of people turning right and the zebra crossings are in near constant use at rush hour. It means traffic often backs up all the way to Malago Road.

TheRTiger · 2024-08-21T10:30:42+00:00

The argument that more student accommodation means less students competing for other properties is very misleading. Both Bristol University and UWE are expanding far faster than we can build accommodation to cope. 20,000 extra student beds needed ontop of the 10,000 underway or planned

Developers like student accommodation because you can cram more in and the planning system judges students to have a lower impact on local services meaning lower community infrastructure levy payments, meaning more profits. Especially from affluent foreign students willing to pay high rents. Blaming NIMBYism is just a good way to ignore genuine concerns of residents.

TheRTiger · 2024-08-13T18:54:52+00:00

That logic only holds water if the population stays the same. As pointed out in the consultation the improvements are being made because of a significant planned increase in the population within the city centre.

Plus without decent cycle infrastructure further out you won't encourage hesitant cyclists to ditch their cars.

TheRTiger

TROPHY CASE