Ex-Mayor George Ferguson: Why We Should Vote To Abolish Bristol's US-Style Mayor system in May 2022

Ex-Mayor George Ferguson: Why We Should Vote To Abolish Bristol's US-Style Mayor system in May 2022

George Ferguson believes city mayor role should be scrapped
The former mayor of Bristol says people should be supporting the metro mayor to get things done for Bristol
By Estel Farell Roig Agenda Editor
You cannot buy favour with journalists and editors to secure elections or referenda in Bristol
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/george-ferguson-believes-city-mayor-6450504
Mr Ferguson said there are many studies which show low or medium rise high-density buildings can be produced, adding that is what traditional European cities are made of.
The architect said what he sees as the biggest threats in Bristol right now - the redevelopment of the St Mary le Port site and the building of a new six-storey block on the harbourside - are office blocks with no homes, adding there is no understanding of what is happening.
Mr Ferguson said the city's glorious, traditional skyline is under threat by boring square blocks, adding a skyline study of the city would be the first step to take to see what development was appropriate.
Bristol has spoilt its skyline, continued the former mayor, particularly with Castle Park View - the 26-storey tower block on the south east corner of Castle Park - which he described as a horrible building.
Mr Ferguson said he finds it unbelievable that kind of development is being allowed to happen.....
The city’s first directly elected mayor said that he was a bit sceptical about plans to build an underground in the city as part of a 'mass transit system'.
Mr Ferguson - who moved to Bristol in 1965 as a student - said that the focus should be on getting cars off the road as that would make it possible to have an efficient transport system that didn't rely on massive infrastructure changes.
"These big ideas sometimes become a distraction from doing the right thing, and the incremental thing, that is so much more achievable," he added.
Independent Ferguson was the first city mayor to be elected in 2012, but he was beaten by Labour's Marvin Rees in 2016.
Mr Ferguson - who campaigned for Bristol to have an elected mayor - didn't stand in last year's elections, but admitted it had been "tempting".
Bristol will be going to the polls this year to decide whether to scrap the mayoral system after opposition councillors had a resounding victory in City Hall in December 2021.
A majority of elected members of Bristol City Council backed a motion to hold a legally binding second referendum ten years after the first which created the post of Mayor of Bristol in 2012.
The referendum in May 2022 will offer Bristolians the choice of keeping an elected mayor or going back to the committee system of governance that was in place about ten years before Ferguson became the city’s first directly elected mayor in November 2012.
Mr Ferguson said that, in his opinion, holding the referendum is the right decision and that he thinks the Bristol mayor position should be removed.
"Since the formation of the Bristol mayor, in 2017 we got the metro mayor," he continued. "Why do other city regions such as Manchester, Birmingham or Leeds get more notice and funding than Bristol and Bath city region?
"It is because they have strong metro mayors.
"What we have is a Bristol city mayor undermining the metro mayor and I think it is important that we invest the powers in the metro mayor.
"We should scrap the Bristol mayor position in favour of giving more strength to the metro mayor position, who will then get much more leverage with Whitehall and Westminster than it is currently the case.
"If the metro mayor position had existed at the time, I would not have supported the formation of Bristol mayor and I would have stood as the metro mayor."
However, Mr Ferguson said that he isn't coming back into politics.
He added: "It is not politics with a big p, I am certainly not going to stand as mayor because I don't think the position will exist anyway.
"I am not going to go into party politics.
"I think I am going to use my voice more than I have in the past five and a half years because I think a decent time has past, which enables people to realise it is not a reaction to a historic defeat in 2016.
"It comes simply from my passion for the city and the belief that we will make a better world if we all do what we can locally."