Meet the Bristol mayor candidate: Sean Donnelly

With a view of his beloved Ashton Gate Stadium from the garden of his Bedminster pub, landlord Sean Donnelly is rooted in the heart of south Bristol.

But it is the city centre that he has big plans for if he is elected mayor.

“My main policy is we want to open the centre back up to the River Frome,” says Donnelly.

“We would open it back up and make it something really attractive and bring the water back up. I would create a waterside area with cafes, shops and pubs. It would give it a vibrancy and somewhere for people to want to go.”

Proudly wearing a jacket emblazoned with the crest of his beloved Bristol City, Donnelly is sitting on a bench in the garden of his West Street pub, the Three Lions, just days before it’s due to reopen. He opens a folder and fishes out some historic photos of Bristol to illustrate his point and show where the river used to run.

He wants to add a centrepiece in the form of a large boat – like the SS Great Britain – to draw in the crowds.

Part of the reason the outspoken pub landlord is running for the role of mayor is that he says he wants what’s best for the city he was born and brought up in.

It’s also because he has an axe to grind following what he believes was unfair treatment of council officers in enforcing Covid rules last year.

Donnelly was fined £1,000 for the Three Lions breaching Covid-19 regulations but he claims his business was unfairly targeted.

“I’m a local man who wants everything that’s best for Bristol and people who live here,” he says. “We felt we were being victimised and there was no one to speak to. I want to have a voice.”

Sean Donnelly says he wants what’s best for Bristol and its people – photo: Martin Booth

Married for 30 years, Robins superfan Donnelly was a glazier before turning his hand to running – in his words – “wet-led boozers”.

“It’s about local people and doing the local thing,” Donnelly says about the Three Lions, where he has been landlord since 1994. Last year, he told his staff not to serve anyone on Remembrance Sunday unless they were wearing a poppy and memorial tributes are a constant presence in the pub year-round.

For him, the pub is like an extended family. For many years, the pub has also hosted ‘Flag Day’ when Bristol City fans gather with smoke grenades before heading to Ashton Gate, usually for the first home game of the season.

Donnelly says that each year a photo is taken and there are people who were children in those photos who still come in as adults. Bristol-born actor Maisie Williams even features in one photo as a four-year-old back in 2001.

Another reason to stand for mayor is that Donnelly feels Bristol has been portrayed in the wrong light recently.

“I would like to change that,” he says passionately. “I would like to get back to saying we are proud to come from Bristol and be proud to walk around Bristol.”

One of Donnelly’s issues is with the recent violence during the Kill the Bill protests, but also the ripping down of the Colston statue during Black Lives Matter demonstrations last summer.

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Read more: Protesters topple Colston statue amid jubilant scenes in Bristol

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He insists this is not because he was in favour of the statue commemorating the notorious slave trader but argues the matter should have been debated properly (although it had been the subject of a long-running campaign and countless debate).

“I don’t think we can put it back up now, what’s done is done,” continues Donnelly. “I think that would cause more trouble than anything but what I do feel that caused big divides – there’s divides in Bristol where there wasn’t. Everyone has always lived together in Bristol – we all have our own identity and can live together.”

Donnelly lives in Bishopsworth and regularly cycles to work. Fishing out another sheet of paper from his folder, he shows examples of cycling routes in other cities – with separated cycle lanes going down the centre of the road, leaving space for vehicles and bikes – arguing things could be much improved in Bristol.

He’s no fan of the clean air zone plans, due to be implemented in October, saying they “cut off the veins to the heart of Bristol”, and arguing recent interventions, such as the closure of Bristol Bridge to through-traffic, only makes the air pollution problem worse as it leads to more congestion elsewhere.

The pub landlord is also critical of current mayor Marvin Rees’ decision not to build an arena at Temple Island in favour of proposals for the Brabazon Hangars in Filton. Donnelly argues this will see investment and income shift away from Bristol to South Gloucestershire.

He believes ordinary people need more of a voice at a city level. “I look at other candidates and think ‘can they identify with someone struggling to pay their mortgage?’”

Main photo by Aphra Evans

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