You're spending between 30-50% of your income on rent – financial "daylight robbery" that's risen 30% since the pandemic. Your home suffers from damp and mould, with landlords unresponsive to repair calls. Meanwhile, 750 properties are lost to Airbnb, intensifying the housing shortage. You apply for "affordable" housing only to discover the council defines it as 80% of market rent – unaffordable when CBC has built barely 75 such homes yearly instead of the needed 500.

Every month, you hand over rent that's jumped 20% since 2022 alone. But when the Cheltenham Playhouse needed £25,000? The Liberal Democrat council found it immediately. Cultural groups ask, and they receive. Renters ask, and they're told there's no money.

This is what political influence looks like – and it's exactly what renters don't have.

The Cheltenham Tenant Union's Insight

Cheltenham's cultural lobby has something renters lack: organized political influence.

Theatre enthusiasts, arts groups, and cultural organizations know how to work the system. They vote reliably, they lobby effectively, and they get results. When the Cheltenham Playhouse faced closure, the cultural demographic that votes Liberal Democrat mobilized – and CBC responded with immediate funding.

Meanwhile, renters – who make up more than 35% of Cheltenham households – have no organized voice. No lobby group. No political influence. That's why CBC does the "bare minimum" on housing while rolling out red carpets for cultural projects.

The Cheltenham Tenant Union exists to change this power imbalance.

What Political Influence Actually Looks Like

Cheltenham's cultural groups have mastered political influence:

• They vote as a bloc in local elections
• They lobby councillors directly on their priorities
• They organize campaigns when their interests are threatened
• They get results – like instant £25k bailouts

This is the political muscle renters are missing. This is why CBC:

• Delivers only 75 affordable homes annually instead of their 500 target
• Lets 750+ homes get converted to Airbnb without regulation
• Under uses existing resources of Cheltenham Borough Homes
• Ignores skyrocketing rent rises and unresponsive landlords

Cultural groups understand that political influence matters more than moral arguments. They don't just complain – they organize, vote, and demand action.

We Need £25,000 to Match Their Political Power – But We Have to Raise It Ourselves

Here's the reality: The council isn't giving us a penny. While cultural groups get instant bailouts, we have to build our own political influence from scratch. That means raising our own money to reach the critical mass where councillors will listen.

First, we need numbers. Share this article. Get others to join. Then we take this campaign beyond the internet and into the letterboxes of Cheltenham's 20,000 rented homes. That means leaflets, door-to-door organizing, and direct voter contact.

Our First Target: The 750 Airbnb Pop-Up Hotels

We can create new homes without laying a single brick by targeting Airbnb's 750+ properties. How many can we return to the residential market where they belong? With proper regulation, we can force these pop-up hotels back into long-term rentals.

Our Second Target: Leveraging Cheltenham Borough Homes

Cheltenham Borough Homes already offers managed letting services. We'll pressure them to extend these resources to private tenants through an ethical letting agency that:

• Partners with ethical landlords who want responsive repairs
• Reverses rent rises instead of enabling them
• Creates a repairs system where tenants don't live with mould for months

The Affordability Crisis Reality

When tenants spend 40% of their income on rent, that's an affordability crisis – regardless of how the council tries to define it away. Until that changes, we need:

• Strict Airbnb regulation to stop the housing drain
• CBH resources redirected to help private renters
• Rent controls that make housing genuinely affordable

Building Our Political War Chest

Every pound we raise goes directly to:

• Leaflets for 20,000 rented homes – reaching tenants who don't know they have power
• Voter registration drives in high-renter areas
• Direct lobbying campaigns that make councillors accountable
• Media pressure that exposes the cultural funding vs housing crisis disparity

The Political Reality: Influence Gets Results

CBC responds to the cultural lobby because they vote, lobby, and organize. They don't just have good arguments – they have political power.

Renters have better arguments, bigger numbers, and more urgent needs. But without organized political influence, we get ignored while theatre groups get instant bailouts.

The Cheltenham Tenant Union is building that political influence.

We're not just another campaign group complaining about housing. We're organizing renters into the kind of political force that gets £25k when we ask for it – just like the cultural lobby does.

Your Political Power Starts Here

Every cultural group member who helped secure that £25k started the same way: they joined, they organized, they voted together.

Join our newsletter and become part of organized renter political power. Help us build the numbers that make councillors listen.

Make a one off donation to fund our membership growth – we need to reach the thousands of renters who don't know their political potential yet.

Support a little every month by becoming a paid subscriber because political influence only works when we organize together. The cultural lobby proves this works. Now it's our turn.

The Cheltenham Tenant Union: Building organized political power for renters. Because cultural groups get £25k bailouts while you can't afford rent – and that's a political problem requiring political solutions.