{"id":9023,"date":"2021-02-17T09:35:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T09:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=9023"},"modified":"2021-02-17T09:35:24","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T09:35:24","slug":"the-new-benchmark-as-long-as-youre-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=9023","title":{"rendered":"The new benchmark &#8211; as long as you&#8217;re white"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On a rare excursion into town, I happened to notice that Castlemead, the city&#8217;s tallest office block, is currently undergoing a refurbishment and is surrounded by site hoardings which have the usual aspirational developer&#8217;s blurb splashed across it, as can be seen below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_0.jpg\" alt=\"General view of shuttering surrounding Castlemead site\" class=\"wp-image-9028\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_0.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_0-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption>General view of the Castlemead site on Lower Castle Street<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Besides being <em>the<\/em> new benchmark, the refurbisher&#8217;s website describes Castlemead as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Castlemead is a city landmark office building and offers high quality refurbished open plan accommodation from 3,450 \u2013 11,128 sq ft and the UK\u2019s First Platinum Plus 100 Cyclingscore Accredited facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With 360 panoramic views over Bristol\u2019s cityscape and Castlepark [sic] and with the Cabot Circus regional shopping, dining and leisure destination on your doorstep, why locate your business anywhere else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, a quick glance at the images chosen to illustrate this landmark office building&#8217;s quality reveals one glaringly obvious fact.<\/p>\n<p>This quality is only available to white people. All the figures shown are invariably Caucasian. There&#8217;s not a <acronym title=\"Black And Minority Ethnic\">BAME<\/acronym> face to be seen anywhere either on the site&#8217;s hoardings or in the <acronym title=\"Computer-Generated Graphics\">CGIs<\/acronym> used on the dedicated website.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9029\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9029\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9029 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_1.jpg\" alt=\"Happy office drones at Castlemead 1\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_1-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9029\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spot the BAME face 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9030\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9030\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9030\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_2.jpg\" alt=\"Happy office drones at Castlemead 2\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_2.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2021\/02\/castlemead_2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9030\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spot the BAME face 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bristol.gov.uk\/statistics-census-information\/the-population-of-bristol\">city council&#8217;s website<\/a>, 16% of the city&#8217;s population of 463,400 persons belongs to a black or minority ethnic group. That&#8217;s over 74,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>When will developers realise and start to portray a more accurate picture of our city in their very expensive fantasy doodlings?<\/p>\n<p>After all, this is not the first time the absence of non-white faces from new Bristol property developments has been pointed out. It is a phenomenon that was first <a href=\"https:\/\/bristle.wordpress.com\/2009\/12\/08\/yuppie-developers-say-bristols-all-white-for-us\/\">highlighted back in 2009<\/a> by a fellow local blogger.<\/p>\n<p>One would have expected the city&#8217;s major property moguls to have learned something by now and made a start on accurately portraying all the kinds of people in the city who will ultimately be occupying their <em>benchmark<\/em> and <em>landmark<\/em> buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, nothing appears to have changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a rare excursion into town, I happened to notice that Castlemead, the city&#8217;s tallest office block, is currently undergoing a refurbishment and is surrounded by site hoardings which have the usual aspirational developer&#8217;s blurb splashed across it, as can be seen below. Besides being the new benchmark, the refurbisher&#8217;s website describes Castlemead as follows: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,17],"tags":[40,36,10],"class_list":["post-9023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-oddities","tag-bristol","tag-comment","tag-facepalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9023"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9062,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023\/revisions\/9062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}