‘The ‘strong’ mayoral system has resulted in dangerously weak, politically driven, decision making’

The principal justification for Bristol’s mayoral system is that it enables firm decision-making and ‘getting things done’.  It is the basis on which I backed Bristol having an elected mayor and subsequently standing as an independent to be the first city mayor with a four party ‘rainbow’ cabinet.

The disgraceful truth is that when it comes to the issue that most matters, our health, we have been badly let down over the past five years.

In 2016 the Government offered cities substantial funding to improve air quality for the installation of Clean Air Zones.

Plans for Bristol’s Clean Air Zone – map: Bristol City Council

Instead of welcoming this with open arms and going for the maximum size available, Bristol’s mayor and his single party cabinet decided to drag their feet and offer the very minimum in an attempt to appease the car commuting lobby.

This has caused a four year delay in implementation during which thousands of citizens will have suffered unnecessary ill-health.

We are promised implementation of the central area Clean Air Zone this year, as we were last, but only of the very minimum area and with such a compromised proposal as to make little difference to the vast majority of citizens living and working outside the tight central zone.

The irony is that the ‘strong’ mayoral system which was designed to deliver such change has resulted in dangerously weak, politically driven, decision making while the committee system, reflecting a multi-party ‘green’ leaning council, would almost certainly have resulted in an earlier and more effective zone covering a much more extensive area.

On Thursday May 5th all Bristol voters have the opportunity to change the mayoral system that has been hijacked to grab single party power to the huge detriment of the environmental health of the city. Since Bristol elected to have a city mayor there have been four ‘game changers’:

1. During my time as mayor we introduced four yearly ‘all out’ elections from 2016 in order to give the stability that had previously been lacking. This remains in place whatever system we adopt.
2. We now have a ‘Metro Mayor’, Dan Norris, who receives the major funding for the ‘West of England’ combined authority, but who is undermined by our own Bristol mayor who has unbelievably spurned major grants for environmental and social improvements.
3. Bristol has grown well beyond its boundary so that strategic planning for transport, housing and health has to be on a city region basis – not on what is now only part of the urban area.
4. We have a party mayor with a single party cabinet locking out the vast majority of the elected councillors from access or influence.

So I shall be voting to adopt a modern committee system with a leader elected by councillors more likely to reflect the wishes of the electorate and the make up of the Council, and which will result in more consensual leadership across Bristol and the ‘West of England’ resulting in what I believe will be a much healthier and greener city that lives up to our status as the UK’s only European Green Capital.

The turnout will be low making every vote count. Make sure yours is one of them!

George Ferguson is the former mayor of Bristol. He served from 2012 to 2016.

Main photo: Bristol Green Party

Read more: ‘The mayoral model creates a politics where sycophancy is rewarded and challenge is suppressed’

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