Your say / Politics
A letter to the new mayor of Bristol
Welcome to office, new mayor of Bristol. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable…while you still can.
Are you sitting tight? Now you’re here we should go over a few things; what to look forward to and, erm, what not look forward to.
Let’s start with money. Of course you know you’re dealing with the tail-end of £83 million of cuts over three years. They are doing their business already, with 800-1,000 job losses expected in total and closures of libraries and care services.
is needed now More than ever
But you should be aware that there is a further £10 million funding gap from central Government which started this financial year.
Anyway, the good news is that £1 billion of central government investment could be unlocked to the Bristol region. Wahey!
However, the key to this money lies with a devolution deal which promises new powers. And that’s only going to happen if you can agree with your not-so-friendly neighbouring authorities to have a “metro mayor” for the entire region – covering South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset. Good luck with that.
We haven’t talked about housing yet. Your salary of £65,738 means you won’t have to worry too much about the cost of living. But us normal folk are feeling the squeeze of a particularly acute housing crisis right here in Bristol.
Yes, yes, you’ve promised to build more houses. Whilst I’m sure they’ll be ready in a few weeks, people are already being forced onto the streets as a result of house prices and rents rising higher than anywhere outside of UK.
By the way, where did you park your car today? Presumably you still have a car parking space? The rest seem to have disappeared.
And did it take you long to get into work today? Probably, seeing as the city still has some of the slowest commuting speeds in the country.
Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that air pollution is still killing 200 people a year in Bristol, where air quality is 35 per cent lower than the legal limit. It might be worth looking at that if you have time.
On the up side, the economy is looking good. Bristol is one of the fastest growing city economies in the UK and one of the few who can proudly say they are a net contributor to the treasury.
Then again, all that growth and jobs are bringing more people – and a further transport and housing headache for you, no doubt (ibuprofen is in the drawer).
And with people also come children of those people. And children of people need to go to school to become adult people. And that’s not going so smoothly at the moment; this year alone 250 families in Bristol didn’t get into their first three choices of schools. Their first three.
Well, that’s about it for now, but just to re-cap: lot’s to do, less and less money to do it with.
Best of luck.
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