The Bristol renters 'pushed out' by housing costs

Tamsyn Fallows, 40, left Bristol after 17 years due to the mounting costs of renting

Former Bristol residents who have left the city due to "extortionate" rents have spoken out as new figures reveal the extent of the problem.

Typical private tenants in Bristol spent 44.6% of their income on rent in 2024 - the highest figure outside London and well above the 30% "affordable" benchmark, according to research.

Former residents described being "forced out" of the city they love. "I was just waking up with anxiety in the middle of the night," says Tamsyn Fallows, 40, who left Bristol due to mounting costs in 2023.

A government spokesperson said: "We are taking decisive action to fix the housing crisis and deliver 1.5 million homes through our Plan for Change."

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson added: "The best way to improve housing affordability is to increase supply which is why we are driving up housebuilding, including delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, backed by £39bn investment."

Ms Fallows said her repeated sleepless nights over rent costs were because she thought: "I don't understand how to afford the going rate."

"It just became unfeasible - at the time I had colleagues at work who were looking for places and they were just totally stressed.

"It wasn't just that the rents were so expensive, there were no rooms."

Living with a chronic health condition, Ms Fallows told BBC Radio Bristol she struggled to work more than four days a week at her job in a health food shop, making rent unaffordable.

"I can't make £2,000 a month with £1,000 going on rent - if I have to pay £1,000 on rent, I don't have enough food to eat," she said.

Now living in Glastonbury with her mother, Ms Fallows also referenced recent reporting on some 720,000 empty homes in England, pointing to a "systemic problem" beyond individuals being unable to afford homes.

"There's an undercurrent - it's not just about people's individual stories. So many people are hungry to have that acknowledged, " she said.

Emily Douglas left the city after just three years following repeated moves around Bristol

A spokesperson for the National Residential Landlords Association said rents continue to remain high across the private rented sector due to the "unprecedented supply and demand crisis".

"Whilst many landlords do not want to raise rents, as it stands, many landlords struggle to justify staying in the market due to small profit margins and the impact that recent tax changes have had on them.

"As a result, they are forced to either raise rents or sell their rental property.

"What the government needs to do as a matter of urgency is introduce pro-growth measures which stimulate investment in private rented accommodation, so that landlords can stay in the market and provide renters in places such as Bristol with a wide range of different, high-quality rental properties to choose from."

Private tenants in Bristol spent 44.6% of their income on rent in 2024 according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Ms Fallows' story was echoed by Emily Douglas, 34, who moved to Bristol for work in 2014 after getting a job at an animal sanctuary.

But after only three years - in which she had to move every six months - she found herself priced out of the city.

With "no real stability", Ms Douglas said she was left "out of pocket" trying to come up with deposits to find new rental homes and was eventually left with little choice but to consider somewhere other than Bristol.

"It was very stressful and very tight-pocketed, and some months you didn't know if you were actually going to pay everything on time and have enough for food at the end of it," she said.

Eventually, the "extortionate" prices meant she and her partner relocated to Weston-super-Mare, where prices were "at least £300" cheaper than in Bristol.

Dan Pandolfino told the BBC that the rising cost of living had exacerbated the situation

Despite being born and raised in Bristol and running a cleaning company in the city, Dan Pandolfino, 29, told the BBC he had felt "pushed out" by the "extortionate" price of renting - so much so that he moved to Olveston, near Thornbury, in 2024.

"Across the board I can see thousands of people in our city that work really, really hard - they're on the go, the roads are often busy very early in the morning, but I just don't think the prices we're forced to pay [on rent ] as a city... it doesn't quite match up to the the income we receive," he said.

And rent, he explained, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to affording life in Bristol.

"It's not just that we have to worry about, is it?" he said.

"We've got to worry about what food we eat, the expensive supermarket prices that are always on the rise, we've got to fuel our cars and pay for vehicles to get from A to B.

"Bristol's a great city, we'd all like to live there, but I think we're being pushed out."