The team behind the west Wales branch of the growing ACORN network talk to voice.wales about the birth of the Aberystwyth union, the housing and transport issues facing the seaside town, and the power of tenants unionising to defend their homes and rights.
Image: Activists with ACORN Aberystwyth branch
V.W: How did the branch get established?
Jo Eastlake, Co-Chair: Back in 2009, Ceredigion Council turned over its housing stock to the housing association Tai Ceredigion. This was run like a business with a CEO, and seemed pretty authoritarian. Things came to a head in 2018, when Tai Ceredigion told upper-floor tenants in a block of Penparcau flats they had three weeks to rehome their pets or they’d get evicted. The ultimatum came out of nowhere, and hugely upset those affected, so several of us organised against it.
Apart from two town councillors, all our elected representatives either ignored or actively worked against us. So did the local press. Tai Ceredigion’s CEO sent aggressive messages and legal threats on Facebook, and tenants with pets said they’d seen wardens snooping around in the early hours taking photos of their flats and balconies.
The result was an uneasy stand-off: Tai Ceredigion never lifted the ultimatum, but tenants didn’t get evicted and still have their pets.
We learnt a lot from this. Clearly no-one was going to fight our corner, and housing associations and private landlords could do what they wanted. We realised we needed to get stronger and organise on working-class issues, including renters’ rights. So a few private and social housing renters decided to start a tenants union, and got in touch with ACORN. We tried forming an ACORN Ceredigion, but it was hard to meet and plan across a large, thinly-populated county, so we created ACORN Aberystwyth. It really got off the ground this year – our numbers grew quickly and we launched officially in May.
ACORN UK gave us loads of support at every step – they’ve helped set up groups across the country and know exactly what they’re doing. So if you’re thinking of starting a group, get in touch with them – you might not know where to start, but you won’t be on your own, and you’ll have the best possible help.
V.W: Why is it important for a renter to be a part of a tenants union?
Tim Holmes, Communications Officer: Mistreatment by landlords has become so common that tenants almost expect it. But it’s not normal – it’s the result of a highly unequal power relationship in which, most of the time, the landlord holds all the cards. As an individual, you really are on your own, at the mercy of your landlord, with the laws stacked against you.
ACORN exists to change that. People know that they share a lot of problems, and many don’t know where to begin solving them. But when we come together and see what we can achieve by acting collectively, we find we have a lot of untapped strength. So you aren’t really on your own, and you aren’t powerless – but you have to organise to exert that power. There is strength in numbers, but it takes solidarity to realise it.
So in Bristol, we’ve stopped landlords sending in bailiffs to evict families. In Manchester, we helped take buses back into public hands. We’ve helped get agency fees banned across the UK. We’re constantly stopping landlords from stealing deposits. And in Aberystwyth, we’ve forced letting agents to drop unlawful “no DSS” clauses which bar benefit claimants from renting.
V.W: What motivates your members to campaign?
TH: ACORN’s model is particularly good at motivating people to join, campaign, and keep campaigning. It builds social relations. We bring ordinary people together, we find out what the problem is, we work out what collective power we have, and we use it. If I go out on an action for a member, I know that same member will join an action for me one day. We don’t want to moan about the state of the world, or make a symbolic point and then go home. We want to win.
Everyone here has a story of being messed around by landlords and letting agents, whether it’s stealing your deposit, evicting tenants on a whim, forcing people to live with black mould – the list is endless. But because the laws are tilted in their favour, there’s not much you can do as an individual. So there’s a lot of anger and frustration beneath the surface, looking for an outlet.
It’s not just tenancies, though. Buses are a lifeline for many people, especially pensioners. But rural bus services are terrible, and have got worse in the last ten years – hundreds of routes across the country have been cut. One resident in Penparcau village this month asked us why there’s no bus service to take older people to the hospital. It’s a good question. Local services are disappearing too, and people have noticed. ACORN campaigns on these issues and others.
V.W: What’s the situation like for tenants in Aberystwyth?
Tom Vaughan, Secretary: Aberystwyth can be a nice place to live, but tenants face really challenging conditions. Because of the university, rents are high compared to the rest of the county, which is mainly rural, and there’s a lot of poor-quality student housing in the town centre. So working people often struggle to find good-quality, affordable housing, while cowboy landlords fleece students, neglect their properties and steal their deposits. And it’s a struggle even if you can afford to rent – most rental ads include “no pet” clauses – for many people a heartbreaking choice.
The biggest difficulty is our incestuous housing market. A small gang of slumlords own so many houses, blocks of flats, letting agencies, hotels, and B&Bs that they have almost a monopoly on the housing supply. This means they can charge over-the-odds for run-down, unhealthy housing in shoddily-built developments, and there’s few alternatives, apart from the odd small buy-to-let landlord.
Renters are scared to speak up and challenge landlords because they might get blacklisted. The local propertied class are all mates and will quickly work out if a tenant is “trouble”, so people worry about losing access to housing. It’s hard to “go it alone”. The flipside is that the landlords are completely unused to dealing with co-ordinated mass opposition, so hopefully we can get the jump on them!
The only remedy is mass participation and collective action, so ACORN Aberystwyth is a vital resource for tenants here. Aberystwyth is the smallest town with an active branch, so we’re still unusual within ACORN, which has mostly worked in big cities like Bristol and Manchester. But that’s changing. The conditions we face in Aber crop up in hundreds of small towns in Wales and the UK, which tend to lack institutions like tenants unions or mutual aid groups. So it’s important to build groups like ACORN in towns like Aberystwyth.
V.W: What needs to change to get a fairer deal for tenants?
TH: The most pressing issue is making sure people aren’t evicted or forced into rent or mortgage arrears by the pandemic. We need to end no-fault evictions, so landlords can’t evict tenants on a whim, or in revenge for complaining. We need longer-term tenancies lasting several years or more. We need rent caps so people aren’t priced out of affordable housing, or forced to surrender half their wages to their landlord. We need proper licensing and regulation of landlords – something ACORN in Bristol and Newcastle have fought for and won.
This means councils can inspect properties, and gives people some legal protection against eviction. Lodgers need stronger rights – currently landlords don’t have to protect their deposits and can evict them with ease. We need to end the relentless grinding down of public budgets we’ve seen over the last decade, which has devastated local services. And we need public transport in public hands, so bus companies can’t cherry-pick profitable routes and cut the rest.
V.W: Should tenants to housing associations be a part of a union as well as private renters?
JE: Yes, definitely. ACORN Aberystwyth emerged out of a battle with a housing association. Most of our members are private renters, including students, but we’re keen to recruit more social housing renters, who share the same interests around public space, public services and housing rights. We also share a lack of representation – a lot of our councillors are private landlords, and private landlords sit on the boards of local housing associations. So we’ve been door-knocking to recruit people in social housing and hear their concerns. We want a broad membership of private renters, students, housing association tenants, anyone who supports what we do and is ready to take action!
