Has a mayor in Bristol been good for democracy?

The introduction of a directly elected mayor in Bristol in 2012 has ‘unnecessarily restricted’ the role of councillors, but visible city leadership has increased, according to research by UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol.

Researchers compared people’s views about the quality of city governance in Bristol in 2012, before Bristol had a directly elected mayor, with current views about the strengths and weaknesses of the mayoral model.

There has also been a small decline in the number of citizens believing that they can influence decisions made in the city. The proportion feeling this way dropped from 27% in 2012 to 23% in 2018.

It’s not all bad news, however, and the research shows that the introduction of mayoral governance in Bristol has given a significant boost to the visibility of city leadership.

In 2012 24% of citizens thought that the city had visible city leadership. By 2018 this figure had more than doubled to reach 51%.

Mayoral leadership has also led to a more broadly recognised ‘vision’ for the city.

In 2012, 25% of citizens thought that the leadership of the council had a vision for the city. This rose to 39% in 2018. In interviews carried out in 2019 civic leaders indicated that mayoral leadership has been critical in developing the new One City Plan, which sets out a detailed vision for Bristol in 2050.

Dr David Sweeting, a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Bristol and another of the report’s authors, said: ‘The report offers several suggestions on how to improve mayoral governance in England in general, and in Bristol in particular.

‘For example, it suggests that Whitehall needs to devolve far more powers and fiscal autonomy to local areas so that elected local leaders, whether they are directly elected mayors or not, can exercise decisive place-based leadership.’

Read the report here.

The current Bristol mayor is Labour’s Marvin Rees. The 2020 mayoral election has been delayed until 2021 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Last summer, New Start travelled to Bristol to meet him and discuss how to tackle air pollution and poverty.