Newton House EPH & The Heath - Bristol - Dec 2017

Nice little morning out with Krela.

Text by Krela, photos by Snailsford.

Newton House EPH was a local authority run care home for the elderly with 37 beds. According to the CQC it was very well regarded, both the staff and residents were happy and well looked after, and it got a glowing report in 2012 - however due to austerity, politics and local authority cutbacks, it was closed shortly after.

We spoke to people about the support they received and they told us that the staff were polite, caring and friendly. One person said; "I get on well with the staff they are all really nice".

We asked one of the people living at the home if they knew what to do if they wanted to make a complaint they told us “I know what to do, I have no complaints to make”.

People expressed satisfaction with the food, one of the people at the home told us “the food here is smashing, always plenty of it!” another person told us “I don’t go a bundle on food generally but I like what I get here, it is always tasty”.

When we spoke to people about the support they received from staff people told us that the staff were polite, caring and friendly. One person told us; "I get on well with the staff they are all really nice", another person said: "I don't have any complaints; the staff are very kind and caring when they support me". Source: Newton House Residential Care Home

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That in itself is not very interesting, it is just a scuzzy empty care home after all. However there is more to the story. The mayor of Bristol back in 2013, in his infinite wisdom, had the great idea of killing two birds with one stone and thought that housing people in the councils empty buildings would not only help with the shortage of affordable housing, it would also solve the problem with security in the many now empty council properties. Great idea right? Well, in theory yes.

It didn't go so well, and in early 2017 a controversy errupted when it was discovered that the companies that the council let run these housing schemes were less than honest. Newton house in particular had been licensed by the council for a nominal sum to a property guardian company, who in turn then sub-let it to a company who were supplying agency bus drivers to the local bus company. However neither company were doing any maintenance to the property, it was falling apart at the seams, electrics going, plumbing knackered etc, so it became a pretty ****** place to live.

The kicker is that the bus drivers were having £115/week deducted from their pay to live there, had no tenants rights as they were classed as licensed guardians (live in security) not tenants, and were sacked if they tried to move out. That's £500/month to live in a ramshackle care home, not exactly a bargain, and to put it into context a double room in a nice normal private shared house with full facilities inc bills is currently around £100/week.

Both companies were making a lot of money (approx £4k/month) for doing literally nothing. Pure exploitation. Thankfully the council have now withdrawn the licenses and taken back management of the buildings, the bus drivers all moved out in September hence them now being derelict, and they're due for demonlition next month. You can read the full news story here: Bus drivers solving city's driver shortage endured living conditions that were 'the pits' - Bristol Post


IMG_7868 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7896 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7894 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7884 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7875 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7889 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7857 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7850 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7851 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7861 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7888 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7870 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7866 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7856 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7879 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7880 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7865-2 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

Above is a typical room that you would pay £115 a month for.

Next door was The Heath Resource Centre, I can't find much info about this place, but before it closed it housed the council adoption / fostering department, an occupational therapy office, and possibly care/respite place for children. All the external windows were bared/gated so I suspect at some point it was a residential home. It was licensed with the same property guardian company as Newton House but was not sub-let to the bus driver agency, and although they paid less there was still no care or maintenance and it seems like a pretty ****** place to live. The last resident moved out in September and this also is scheduled for demolition next month.

IMG_7867 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7862 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7892 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7891 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

IMG_7846 by Andy Brailsford, on Flickr

Thanks for reading.

Not the best place I've ever been to, but a curious story behind it.

Hmmm...more piss takin greedy "landlords" exploiting desperate or less fortunate folks again, nasty that. Rather crafty little scam too, you would have though higher of a property guardian company but there's always someone doing the dodgy somewhere! Often property's get sublet so many times that the chain becomes confusing on who actually pays who, it did with me back in the 90's, resulted in me being on the streets for over 5 yrs. Good write up Krela.

A rather tricky place to photograph with not a lot of light in there. Wots goin on with that hoover attached to the half coke bottle then tied to the ceiling with a bit of cotton, I mean wtf lol am I missin something here! Big bag of scooby snax surprised there are still there...must be suppositories or a no fun mix. I like your final corridor shot thats very nice Well you have to have a look in theses places as you wouldn't know what you could have missed

The coke bottle we reckon was rigged up to catch a leak in the roof. The pills were a mix of statins, inhaler, 200 500mg paracetamol (strong but not that interesting) and 200 30mg dihydrocodeine (very interesting, very sellable on the street). Whilst ordinarily I don't condone taking things from properties they've now been safely disposed of as the site is a walk in and kids could easily find them.

There's another 5 or 6 big properties in Bristol that were lived in by property guardians to recce sometime over Christmas. I'm sure they're not very interesting but like you say PV, if you don't look you won't know! Sometimes it's fun to play dodge the smackhead anyway.

krela said:

The coke bottle we reckon was rigged up to catch a leak in the roof. The pills were a mix of statins, inhaler, 200 500mg paracetamol (strong but not that interesting) and 200 30mg dihydrocodeine (very interesting, very sellable on the street). Whilst ordinarily I don't condone taking things from properties they've now been safely disposed of as the site is a walk in and kids could easily find them.

There's another 5 or 6 big properties in Bristol that were lived in by property guardians to recce sometime over Christmas. I'm sure they're not very interesting but like you say PV, if you don't look you won't know! Sometimes it's fun to play dodge the smackhead anyway.

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Yeah I can see wot you mean about the hoover contraption now haha, very sensible to safely dispose of them pills Krela...I find smackheads are usually pretty easy to dodge, they are either gouchin out or elsewhere on a mission, it's the crackheads that are harder to dodge