Vibrant and Cosmopolitan St Judes – How Estate Agents Tell Giant Lies to Sell Properties

Estate agents Hollis and Morgan have a job to do. Trying to sell a flat in Haviland House in St Judes can’t be an easy sell. Let’s be honest. It’s in a ward of extreme deprivation, home to most of the biggest hostels and there’s always several emergency service vehicles in the area dealing with one incident or another. It’s loud all day and all night and street fighting is a common occurrence. But it is what it is and for everyone, it’s home.

There is no option to gentrify the area and push rental and property prices up thankfully. No empty commercial buildings waiting for an overpriced organic coffee shop to open. Definitely nowhere for an artisan bakery, though you will find a collection of these places in Old Market a machete swing away.

So I was somewhere between bemused and annoyed when a friend sent a Bristol Post link regarding the auction of a maisonette in a large block of council homes.

Hollis Morgan, heralded with a smug Bristol Post article that for once hadn’t been mined from BS4 Connect, boasted of a property ‘located close to the vibrant Stapleton Road within the cosmopolitan suburb of Easton.’ Hogwash of such epic proportion, I snorted out my cheap instant coffee. St Judes is many things, but synonymous with ‘vibrant’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ it is not. In fact, it’s the final proof that not only do estate agents lie, but that the Bristol Post has imploded on itself. The stretch of Stapleton Road that St Judes is located next to is definitely not ‘vibrant’ except for the blue flashing lights of police cars.

The property itself at the top of Haviland House is close to Cabot Circus (an 8 minute walk not 15) and serves as a stark contrast between affluence and poverty. It is also close to Old Market – the LGBT+ safe space of Bristol and  Old Market is up and coming thanks to the various artists and independent businesses who have worked hard in a difficult area.

But St Judes is also a safe space for a large Muslim community. A community that isn’t necessarily welcomed into other estates in Bristol despite the city’s generally diverse attitude. There’s a mosque on Wade Street opposite the maisonette of strong ‘potential return’. Racism can be rife on the streets from those who are not from St Judes itself. It is not uncommon to hear abuse thrown towards those from the Muslim community from outsiders heading in and out of Central Bristol.

Haviland House is in St Judes. It’s not in Stapleton Road. It’s not part of Easton. It’s not Cabot Circus. It is its own unique and diverse area. One that is chaotic. Full of characters and incidents. Noise, mayhem and the glorious smell of Wogan Coffee just across the river full of dumped stolen bikes and bags.

Don’t sell a fictitious story about what it could be if you rose tint the maisonette windows and rent it out for £750 a month. Sell it for the wonderfully awful area full of real people that it is. Haviland House is in St Judes.