Dwindling confidence in Westminster, the cost-of-living crisis and the climate emergency would seem to point to an increasingly important role for prominent local leaders to keep their cities on track – particularly if they are to remain attractive to global investors.
Yet in Bristol, the electorate voted earlier this year to scrap the role of an elected, executive mayor vested with greater powers than a council leader, 10 years after it voted to introduce the role.
In fact, it is one of a growing number of UK cities to go down this path: Hartlepool, Stoke-on-Trent and Torbay have all scrapped the role of mayor.
For Bristol, the referendum came halfway through a second term in office for Labour mayor Marvin Rees. Instead of continuing with the experiment, Bristolians opted to put in place a committee system for at least the next decade – albeit on a low 29% turnout.
So when Rees’s second term ends in 2024, the council will establish a series of cross-party committees to ratify decisions in specific policy areas. According to the Local Government Association, it’s a system that means “more councillors are actively involved in decision-making, but it can take longer to reach decisions”.
Different decision-making
Green Party councillor Christine Townsend, elected in 2021, has been close to the process that heralded the end of the mayor-and-cabinet system for Bristol. She describes the frustration caused by the mayor’s decision to “maintain a concentration of power” by appointing an all-Labour cabinet – particularly after the Green Party gained an equal number of councillors in 2021.
“That eventually meant that people said, ‘We don’t want this system anymore.’ You need to listen to how people have voted,” she says. The referendum on Bristol’s local government system was ultimately proposed by Liberal Democrat councillors, seconded by the Greens. “Diversity leads to better decision-making,” Townsend adds.
One decision that particularly rankled was the ending of long-running plans for an arena on Temple Island, next to Temple Meads station in the city centre, which had been championed by Rees’s predecessor. Rees had initially supported the idea but changed his mind after projected construction costs spiralled. The decision effectively meant that the city “lost” the arena to the Brabazon Hangars site north of Bristol in Filton, south Gloucestershire, where the YTL Arena is scheduled to open in 2024.
Townsend says the Temple Island proposal had offered “huge promise” for the city. “We’d had years of build-up to that arena development and it’s now been lost to Bristol. People were very sore about that,” she says.
But won’t a committee-based approach slow down important decisions like this still further – with further potential impacts for the real estate sector?
Townsend is optimistic that it can deliver the right development for the city. “I think there will inevitably be some decisions that will take longer,” she says. “But I believe the decisions in the end will take more of the residents with them because they will take more of the elected representatives with them, because they’ve been involved in the decision. It will be better decision-making.”
Her reassurance to developers is that planning must be non-party political and must be based on the national framework. “That’s how it is now. That won’t change,” she says. But exactly how the committee system will operate when it comes to planning and other areas has yet to become clear: a working group is exploring options and is due to report back before the end of the year.
Western powerhouse
John Savage, executive chairman of Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Initiative, believes Rees has done “the best that he could” with the mayoral role. “The fact is that whatever system you have, it requires a leader of some kind,” he says.
“Whether you have a committee system or some other system, you need a good leader – somebody who can actually conduct the orchestra well rather than trying to play all the instruments themselves,” Savage adds. “I look forward to change always. I think we must help each other to make the best of whatever this proposition is, which was voted for by the people.”
Jonathan Lambert, a director in the Bristol development team at Savills and head of its UK mixed-use development group, hopes it will bring some much-needed clarity for investors and developers looking at Bristol from the outside.
Shifting and multiple layers of local government over the years have created a “mind-boggling” situation, he says. Not least when Bristol gained an additional elected mayor in 2017, with the creation of the West of England Combined Authority covering Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Aimed at creating a “Western Powerhouse”, its powers extend to homes, transport, skills, jobs and support for businesses.
“When you’re talking to people from overseas or to institutions or people who are dealing nationally across the country, they get quite confused,” Lambert says. “They know about Andy Burnham and Greater Manchester, Andy Street and the West Midlands and then suddenly they come to Bristol…”
They’re not interested in all the “little boundaries” that local people talk about, he adds, because instead they see Bristol as a much wider area stretching beyond the core city. To that extent, scrapping the city mayor role could be beneficial. Townsend also suggests that the switch to a cross-party committee system could enable Bristol to work more effectively with neighbouring local authorities, which operate leader-and-cabinet models.
In the meantime, the uncertainty about exactly how Bristol’s new committee system will operate is unhelpful for investors looking for “consistency of message and resourcing” when they try to form a view on whether to invest or not, Lambert warns.
Bristol has an urgent need to move forward; to reinvent the “pretty poor” environment of Broadmead, its core shopping area; and to deliver on the Temple Quarter regeneration programme around Bristol Temple Meads station.
“We need to get those things delivered in the short term,” Lambert adds. “Otherwise Bristol is going to fall further and further behind in terms of perception, while being successful despite itself.”
The panel
- Jonathan Lambert, director, development, Savills Bristol
- John Savage, executive chairman, Bristol Chamber of Commerce and Initiative
- Christine Townsend, councillor, Green Party, Bristol City Council
To send feedback, e-mail julia.cahill@eg.co.uk or tweet @EGJuliaC or @EGPropertyNews
