Student Council: What happened?
On the 16th April, we hosted the last Student Council and Forum of the academic year!
Epigram, the university’s student publication, submitted the sole motion to this council.
Rent Review’ - Epigram’s ‘Break the Mould’ Campaign
The Motion:
The student rental market in Bristol is broken. According to Bristol SU’s Housing Report 2024, 53% of students said their experience with landlords had been ‘negative’ or ‘very negative’. In 2014/15 an SU survey found that 75% of students had experienced damp or mould. According to an Epigram survey last year, 93% of students had experienced these issues. In response to this, Epigram launched ‘Break the Mould’, a student-led housing campaign highlighting the pitiful state of private housing in Bristol and demanding accountability from landlords.
Part of the stated goals of the campaign was to introduce an online rating system for landlords, and introduce an accreditation scheme partly informed by these reviews. The campaign’s petition has nearly 700 signatures and received national coverage at the time.
The outcome:
There were some questions from students about how the accreditation scheme would work and the potential knock-on effects of this. The proposer of the motion explained that it would be a voluntary opt-in scheme for landlords to show that they take student welfare seriously.
There was no speech against, and the vote was unanimously passed. It will now become SU policy to continue supporting this campaign, but it will remain a student-led initiative.
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