Category Archives: Bristol

Calls for investigation of Uber Eats and Deliveroo after raid on Bristol caravan camp

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Migrant workers accuse Home Office of targeting the victims of labour exploitation rather than companies profiting from them

Migrant workers living in a caravan encampment raided by immigration enforcement officers have accused the Home Office of targeting the victims of labour exploitation rather than companies profiting from the hidden economy.

The Observer reported in August that about 30 mainly Brazilian delivery riders working for large companies such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats were living in dilapidated caravans in the centre of Bristol. Many claimed they were, in effect, earning below the minimum wage and could not afford to rent in the city.

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Airport parking: £100 fines in Bristol ‘could be unenforceable’

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Eagle-eyed reader and consumer solicitor say local bylaws are key to question of enforcement

Are private fines sent by Bristol airport’s contractor to motorists who pick up passengers outside its designated, paid-for, drop-off and pickup zone unenforceable?

It looks as though they may be, if an eagle-eyed Guardian reader and a leading consumer solicitor are correctly interpreting the bylaws that govern the airport.

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Human remains found in London house search after bodies discovered in Bristol

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Crime scene in place in west London’s Shepherd’s Bush as hunt for another suspect continues

Human remains were found at a house in west London as police investigated the discovery of the body parts of two men in a pair of suitcases near the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol, Scotland Yard has said.

A Met police statement said: “While searching a flat in Scotts Road, W12 on Friday, 12 July, officers found human remains which are in the process of being sensitively removed. Additional postmortem examinations will be arranged as soon as possible.

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British chipmaker Graphcore bought by Japan’s SoftBank

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Deal for undisclosed sum secures Bristol-based company’s future after ‘material uncertainty’ in 2023

Graphcore, a British chipmaker once seen as a potential competitor to Nvidia, has been bought by Japan’s SoftBank in a deal that secures the company’s future.

The Bristol-based startup’s products are focused on artificial intelligence and it has been acquired by the powerful Japanese tech investor for an undisclosed sum. Last year, Graphcore warned that there was a “material uncertainty” over its survival and that it needed fresh funding by May 2024.

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Dreams and jobs slowly fade away as Bristol bears brunt of arts cuts

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In the shadow culture minister’s seat, there is a degree of hope a Labour government might bring change

“I felt like Bristol was one of the best places in the country to make theatre,” says writer and performer Amy Mason, who’s lived in Bristol for most of her life. “It was quite punk. It was this very well organised, inclusive and active system of getting work on stage. People could make a living out of theatre.”

Mason left school at 16 and worked in retail, but a community theatre project not far from the colourful house we’re sitting in on the edge of the city offered her the chance to attend a playwright workshop and put on a small show. “They liked it, they gave me a commission, I was like: Oh my God, I could be a writer!” From there, she started writing short stories, went on to stage three shows with Bristol Old Vic, and has grown a career as a TV writer and standup comedian.

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Greens and Plaid Cymru pledge to push Labour on climate, housing and poverty

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Election campaigns kick off with policies on single market, climate crisis, NHS and clean seas

Plaid Cymru and the Green party have launched their election campaigns, focusing on issues ranging from offshore windfarms’ profits to initiatives for improving water and air quality.

The parties, which hope to win about four seats each, vowed to keep a Labour government in check and to push the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, to be bolder in areas such as health, housing and the environment.

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‘Promising signs’: Greens dominate in Bristol election

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As party narrowly misses out on overall majority, co-leader says it has won spread of urban and rural seats

The Greens are celebrating a spectacular win in Bristol, where it became by far the largest party, as it headed for a record number of councillors in local elections across England.

Party officials said they believed they were on track to finish with more than 800 members on more than 170 councils.

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Teasing children about weight increases risk of self-stigma as adults, study finds

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Research reveals ‘long-lasting effects’ caused by pressure from parents, families, bullies and the media

Parents who tease their children about their weight are putting them at greater risk of feeling bad about their bodies decades later, regardless of whether they grow up to have obesity or not, a groundbreaking study has found.

Thirteen-year-olds who felt pressure from family members to shed pounds and endured weight-based teasing showed higher levels of internalised weight stigma when they turned 31, according to research by the University of Bristol published on Tuesday in the Lancet Regional Health Europe journal.

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UK churches keen to host heavy metal bands after duet with organist is a hit

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After ‘bonkers gig’ at Huddersfield town hall paired doom metal bands with pipe organist, churches are keen to get in on the act

It was a “bonkers gig”, pairing heavy metal with a pipe organ – a musical curiosity that the bands thought would surely seldom be repeated, if ever.

But Pantheïst and Arð, the doom metals bands who performed the concert at Huddersfield town hall last year, have been inundated with requests to repeat the performance – with churches leading the way.

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‘It’s on our doorstep’: Bristol’s fearful parents seek answers after three knife deaths in three weeks

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As teenage victims are mourned across the English city, some believe the return of youth centres would keep children safer

Terre Baptiste has been checking her teenage son’s whereabouts compulsively since a 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed two weeks ago in a park a mile away from their home in the east of Bristol.

“It is very worrying,” says Baptiste, in her living room. “Bristol isn’t a perfect city. But there weren’t stabbings one after the other. It was few and far between. Now it is on our doorstep.”

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Kingswood byelection: Labour overturns big Tory majority to win

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Blow for Rishi Sunak as former Lewisham mayor Damien Egan elected in South Gloucestershire seat

Labour has overturned an 11,000-plus Tory majority to win the byelection in the South Gloucestershire constituency of Kingswood.

Damien Egan, who resigned as the mayor of Lewisham in south-east London to contest the seat even though it is being abolished at the next general election, is celebrating victory after a professional and energetic Labour campaign. He won with 11,1176 votes, to 8,675 for his nearest rival, the Conservatives’ Sam Bromiley, a majority of 2,501. Labour won on a swing in the share of the vote of 16.4 percentage points – some way above the 11.4 point swing needed.

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‘Just a person who liked chips’: Bristol takeaway celebrates Cary Grant ties

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Rendezvous restaurant loved by young Archibald Leach marks film star’s 120th birthday

There was singing, story-telling, sparking wine – and chips galore as a double anniversary celebration was staged for a Hollywood star and the modest restaurant and takeaway he used to love.

The joyful bash was held to mark what would have been Cary Grant’s 120th birthday and the 60th anniversary of the Rendezvous fish and chip shop that the actor used to frequent in his home town of Bristol.

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Barton House: what happened and what is Bristol council doing about it?

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After the building was evacuated, leaving hundreds temporarily homeless, we look at what happens next for residents and the council

What has happened at Barton House tower block in Bristol?

Barton House, a 65-year-old 15-storey tower block, was built in the late 1950s using reinforced concrete cross walls, pre-cast concrete floors and reinforced concrete external walls.

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Cary Grant biopic boosts interest in star’s harsh early life in Bristol

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New series, Archie, screened in English hometown of Hollywood legend many think of as being wholly American

He is better known as a debonaire habitué of sun-splashed Californian beauty spots and glamorous New York nightclubs, but a flurry of screenings and special events this month will focus attention on a sometimes overlooked aspect of Cary Grant’s life – his very modest roots in Bristol, England.

A preview of a biopic of Grant called Archie – with Jason Isaacs taking on the tough task of playing one of the most famous of all film stars – is being screened in Bristol ahead of its showing on ITVX, and a new guided walk through Grant’s former haunts in the West Country city is being launched.

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Woman who helped organise Colston statue protest jailed for fraud

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Xahra Saleem admitted offence relating to fundraiser before Bristol BLM protest when slave trader’s statue was dumped in harbour

A key organiser of the protest in Bristol during which a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and dumped in the city’s harbour has been jailed for two and a half years for fraud.

Xahra Saleem, 23, admitted using more than £30,000 that was supposed to go to a charity for disadvantaged youngsters in the city to fund her lifestyle, including spending almost £6,000 on Uber rides.

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St Mungo’s homelessness charity workers begin month-long strike

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Members of the Unite union will picket in London, Brighton, Bristol and Oxford after ‘pitiful’ pay offer

Workers at the homelessness charity St Mungo’s will begin a month-long strike on Tuesday in a dispute over pay.

Members of Unite who work at the organisation will mount picket lines outside its head office in Tower Hill in London and in Brighton, Bristol and Oxford. The union said the industrial action was over a “pitiful” pay offer of 2.25%, which was made in April 2023.

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‘It’s not my shame, it’s his’: Somerset woman speaks out on childhood abuse by brother

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Exclusive: Liz Roberts says familial sexual abuse is a ‘hidden scourge’ that has long-term impact on victims

A woman who was sexually abused by her older brother half a century ago when she was a young girl has waived her right to anonymity to describe her decades of torment and to encourage other victims of familial abuse to come forward.

Liz Roberts, 59, a former police officer, said the abuse carried out Andrew Herbert when she was about eight had led to a life of self-loathing and shame punctuated by episodes of depression, anxiety and self-harm.

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Police settle claims over alleged assaults on Bristol protesters

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Exclusive: protesters say they were assaulted by officers at peaceful ‘kill the bill’ demonstration in March 2021

A police force has paid damages to protesters who allege they were assaulted by officers when they broke up a peaceful “kill the bill” demonstration in Bristol.

One of the protesters alleges that an officer struck him in the face with a shield, leaving him scarred, and a second claims she struggled to breathe when she was crushed beneath two police shields. They say they witnessed another protester being dragged along the ground by his long hair.

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Man admits killing parents after secretly leaving English psychiatric hospital

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William Warrington slipped out of hospital in Gloucestershire and stabbed his mother before taking her car to kill father

A man with paranoid schizophrenia has admitted stabbing his parents to death on the same night in two attacks 15 miles apart, after slipping out of a psychiatric hospital in Gloucestershire.

William Warrington killed his mother, Valerie, 73, a hospital worker, at her home in the Cotswolds village of Bourton-on-the-Water in March. He then drove her car to his father, Clive’s, home in Cheltenham and killed him. Neighbours heard Warrington say “I’m going to enjoy this” as he attacked his father, 67.

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