ESTATE AGENTS' BIKE RAFFLE PRIZE

Every year, Besley Hill Estate Agents at Downend donate a bike as a raffle prize for the St Augustine of Canterbury Primary School Summer Event. The school and parish have been running different summer events for over 40 years and this year’s fete is being held on Saturday, June 30, within the grounds of the school in Boscombe Crescent, Downend. “Everyone is welcome to come and join in a really fun family day out," says Sue Mulrenan, one of the parents organising the event. Picture shows Sue and David Vincent, director of Besley Hill Estate Agents’ Downend office, with the bike to be won in the raffle.

SOUTH WEST LEADS THE WAY FOR HOUSE SALES

Estate agents in the South West are enjoying growing sales, despite figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) indicating a significant fall in house prices elsewhere in the UK. Data from the Land Registry for England and Wales shows that outside of London more houses were sold in the region between January and March this year than anywhere else in Britain. Some agents in the Bristol area have reported as much as a 40 per cent rise in sales compared to this time last year, in contradiction with the picture painted by the RICS. Adam Offer, managing director of Besley Hill, which has 15 offices covering Bristol and Gloucestershire, disagreed completely with the idea that the housing market has frozen. Not here, absolutely not,” he said. “We are seeing a rise across the board. Sales are up, viewings are up, and more potential buyers are registering with us. We’re lucky here that the picture isn’t as bleak as it is nationally. In places like Thornbury, we’re able to sell a three-bed semi with phone calls. What we’re seeing now is the people who are living in rented accommodation starting to see house prices edge up slightly and deciding to buy. So we have an issue of supply and demand.”