We were honoured to recently welcome Mayor Marvin Rees to our Friendship Club on Tuesday 26^th of March, during Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. 

The Friendship Club is a weekly social club for adults with Cerebral Palsy, which is still going strong after 50 years! Around 25 people attend this Club regularly, and it is a vital source of support which combats social exclusion and loneliness, something that many people with complex disabilities like Cerebral Palsy face in their everyday lives. One of our members Graham has attended for over 30 years and describes the Club as his lifeline, saying it has given him the support and friendship that he desperately needed. He says the friends he has made at the Club over the years are like having another family.

Cerebral Palsy Plus is the charity behind the Friendship Club, we are the only organization providing specific support to individuals of all ages living with Cerebral Palsy in Bristol and surrounding areas. Our mission is to support our members to live as independently as they wish and to live life to the full. Living with a complex disability presents many challenges, from the pain and discomfort caused by physical symptoms to the emotional impact of living with a disability.

The Mayor was greeted by the Friendship Club members with warmth and enthusiasm, and there was a wonderful sense of connection established on the evening.  One of our members Adrian, was delighted that the Mayor remembered he used to live on the same road as him!

There was also a real sense of excitement in the room and the Mayor’s presence was appreciated by the group, who were pleased he took an interest and enjoyed getting involved.  He even took part in a game of Boccia alongside the members.  Our member Helen said “He was really nice to talk to, and even said we could go to sit in the Lord Mayor’s Chair!”

Another member Debbie shared that it meant a lot that the Mayor took time to visit the Club, saying  “I was surprised by the visit! It was really enjoyable to listen to the Mayor and it was so special that he came.”

As conversations flowed, the Mayor even extended a heartfelt invitation that the group could visit his office and sit in the Lord Mayor’s Chair at City Hall, an opportunity some of the members are excited to take up.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Mayor Marvin Rees for taking the time to visit the local Cerebral Palsy community here in Bristol, his presence meant a great deal to the members of our Club.

Back in February 2020, standing in City Hall, Mayor Marvin Rees helped officially launch the Women’s Work Lab, a Bristol based social enterprise that supports mums on benefits back into work via a nine month training, work placement and coaching programme.

Back then, there was one cohort of 15 women; all of them united by their desire to get back into work despite facing multiple barriers. And it worked, despite the challenges of the pandemic and lockdowns, two-thirds of those mums landed new roles. Jobs that fitted around family life. With flexible employers who recognise amazing talent when they see it.

Four years later

Fast forward to 2024 and the Women’s Work Lab is going from strength to strength. Over 300 mums have joined our training programmes and we now deliver training right across the South West of England; three cohorts that coincide with the school terms in Bristol and then other programmes in Bath, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Somerset.

The mums we work with face multiple barriers to employment; the majority are lone parents, many have survived domestic abuse, home displacement, have health conditions, English as a second language, or children with special educational needs. The list is endless. Demand for our programmes is so high that we always have a waiting list.

The bespoke classroom training, work placement and career coaching programmes focus on building confidence, ambition and employability skills to ensure all our mums are “work ready”. We support mums with whatever is the best next step for them; ambition is so individual and for some mums that may mean more training or volunteering and for others it’s that first role in a long time.

Working with businesses

We are also incredibly proud that more and more businesses are recognising that mothers returning to work are hidden talents; they bring transferable skills, life experience, and a new perspective. The word is spreading and we hear from businesses every day that want to work with our mums. Our job is to work with those businesses to ensure they are truly places where our mum can thrive. That might mean looking at barriers to recruitment processes, not least the unnecessary focus on previous work experience rather than the plethora of transferable skills many women possess. Then there is work culture, onboarding processes and progression to consider too. This year for example we supported 15 mums into a part-time entry level returnship at Hargreaves Lansdown.

What’s next

A new programme is starting in Bristol in April 2024 and we would love to hear from any mums (or referral partners) who may be interested; Apply now. It’s always best to fill out the application form as you can also join the wait list for September should the programme already be full. Interviews are happening right now.

We would also love to speak to businesses who may be interested in hosting our mums on work placements, sponsorship opportunities or telling our mums about roles. Do email on hello@womensworklab.co.uk.

And the last word goes to one of our brilliant mums who recently landed a new role;

“The training and placement taught me what was important to me in any job role; with teamwork key! I loved every part of the support I have had with the Women’s Work Lab. I have since been offered a role in a school and even had the confidence to negotiate 4 days a week.”

Our administration cares deeply about Bristol’s parks and green spaces. Over eight years, we have worked hard to protect and invest in them, despite national austerity, and just last week we launched our strategy to improve their accessibility for all residents. 

We also care about Bristolians’ right to bury and subsequently visit their loved ones, in the city they lived, close to the people they cared about.  

Making tough decisions is part of leading a complicated and diverse city like Bristol. Working with the cards you are dealt, finite land and resources, and then choosing what is best for the city and its population.  

The decision to expand South Bristol Cemetery was the correct one. Simply put, Bristol is running out of burial space – the eight council-owned cemeteries cannot manage the pressure building from one of our country’s fastest growing cities. 

It is the only appropriate option that has the necessary existing infrastructure and transport links, has the right topography and wouldn’t put additional pressure on green space in the city. A completely new development would result in larger carbon emissions and involve a larger area of green space.

It’s easy to make sensationalist statements about our intentions, trying to raise fear and headlines through a fictionalised conflict between burial space and nature. But nobody has the right to fail Bristolians in such a fundamental way by doing nothing. 

Protecting the SNCI 

It remains an absolute priority for us that we complete this work correctly. Protecting this area, as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), has been at the forefront of our plans from the beginning.  

The council has worked to establish a close relationship with the current licensed grazier, sharing information about best practice to ensure the protection of wildlife and biodiversity. Our precaution includes developing detailed clauses within the lease, which will allow us to take enforcement action if there is mismanagement in the future.

Enabling grazing with the right cattle will ensure the SNCI is managed effectively to maintain and restore the valuable species-rich grassland which characterises this part of the SNCI: something that has become sub-optimal under the current management regime. This means we can protect the site without needing to cut for hay every year.

A Landscape and Ecological Management Plan (LEMP) is also being prepared in consultation with the grazier and other relevant partners. The LEMP sets out the council’s practical measures to ensure the ecological mitigation commitments made as part of the planning application will be delivered.  

What work is happening? 

It is easy to exaggerate any work that has taken place, when publicising pictures of tyre tracks in a muddy field during a wet February, or contrasting pictures of shrubbery in summer with those taken in winter. 

In reality, the only work undertaken by Bristol City Council at Yew Tree Farm this year has been soil information sampling to enable design of a drainage attenuation basin. This is a pond which stores excess rainwater during storms, releasing it more slowly to reduce downstream flood risk. The soil sampling involved digging six small trial holes in the area designated for this pond. 

The main scrub encroachment clearance work is yet to happen. This includes cutting back isolated, overgrown patches of bramble in the centre and edge of the field, with no hedgerows or other established vegetation clearance included. 

Bramble scrub encroachment clearance is an essential part of maintaining and restoring the species rich grassland of the SNCI. The cemetery expansion is enabling a significant investment in preserving and restoring the natural biodiversity of the SNCI. To leave the bramble scrub encroachment untouched would lead to the loss of this grassland. The Ecological Management Plans leave ample valuable shelter for birds, small mammals and insects, while ensuing grazing will maintain the future balance of scrub and grassland.

When the council was given latest information about dormice potentially being in the southern part of Yew Tree Farm, we immediately started work to undertake a dormouse survey, using suitably qualified and licensed ecologists.  

The council will only commence scrub encroachment clearance here, once it has been confirmed that the risk of harm to protected species in the area being cleared is acceptably low and when weather conditions permit works to take place in a considerate manner. 

Last month the council’s ecologist, tree and enforcement officers visited a separate part of the site, not connected to the cemetery expansion, and observed hedgerow damage in adjacent, non-council land. They immediately passed their findings to the police to investigate. 

We raised the case with the land’s grazier, enforcing that any future works undertaken on this site should be informed by ecological surveys where required. Council officers have also shared best practice to prevent this happening again.  

South Bristol Cemetery  

The land leased by Bristol City Council to the farmer at Yew Tree Farm for grazing, had been earmarked for cemetery expansion since the 1960s. All parties had understood the agreement, with the farmers’ children growing up back then calling the area the ‘cemetery’. 

The benefits this will bring are huge, including over 1,700 burial plots, new memorial plots, associated roads, footpaths, and more key infrastructure to support this. 

This amounts to 25 years of ongoing burials in Bristol, including vital space for a diverse range of faith burials to address community needs alongside an adjacent area for infant burials. 

We already have immense pressure building on the capacity to bury people in our city. A new area for Muslim baby burial is essential, which is why we have worked with Bristol’s Muslim Burial Group to design the baby burial area to have up to 275 burial plots, divided into sections with hedging and access paths, trees, and seating area with planting. Solving these issues now and preparing for the future is absolutely essential.

Protecting the SNCI at Yew Tree Farm and providing Bristol families with necessary burial space are not issues in conflict with eatchother. We can, and we will, do both to ensure we have a well-considered, beautiful place to bury and remember our loved ones, in a space that is also rich in nature and wildlife. We will continue to work hard, despite the noise of those who excel in creating heat rather than light, doing everything necessary to get this right.  

A year after our project got underway, I went to the LED street lighting upgrade headquarters to find out more about the £12 million project and to see where we are up to.

The Centregreat depot is in Avonmouth and here, amidst the hum of activity and the sight of 9,000 LED lanterns awaiting installation, I was struck by the sheer scale and efficiency of the project.

The transition to LED street lighting could save council taxpayers up to £2 million a year in energy and maintenance costs as well as saving an estimated 13,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year within 10 years. Not only are LEDs more energy-efficient but they also last much longer without needing to be replaced, reducing maintenance costs as well as carbon emissions, which is a win-win for both the environment and our budget.

On the day of the visit, I met the team, including council engineers, Mark from Centregreat, and Gary from Urbis-Schreder, who make the LED lighting. I was shown all the systems, the standard LED lanterns plus some heritage ones which are more complex to install.

Work to convert around 29,000 street lights to low-energy LED units underscores our dedication to modernise Bristol’s infrastructure. The three-year project is ahead of schedule and has already seen 19,270 LED lanterns installed throughout the city, with the remaining standard lanterns and the new LED heritage-style lanterns to be completed before the end of March 2025.

The heart of this upgrade lies in the LED lanterns themselves. Each unit boasts a node on top, seamlessly integrated into a radio mesh network that enables real-time monitoring and adjustments from the depot. This innovative technology allows us to remotely manage the performance of each street light, ensuring they are working as they should while swiftly addressing any faults that may arise.

I am excited by the transformative potential this project holds for our city. By embracing LED technology, we’re not only illuminating streets, but we are also paving the way towards a brighter, more sustainable future.

Find out more about our LED upgrade.

You can watch Kat Lyons’ brilliant new poem above from 0:12:56 on the event livestream.

Our City Poet performed it beautifully, ahead of my final major speech as mayor of my home city.

The Builders

Those who build houses
make something greater than the parts,
more than bricks and wires and glass. The footprint of a home
is a complicated sum where 1+1+1=
unquantifiable. Where to start. How to measure
the span of a roof that shelters a childhood,
the breadth of ambitions seeded by security,
the volume of lungfuls of long-held instability
exhaled
into community’s foundations.

Those who build communities
create an interlocking lacework, the pattern
finely woven in a mesh of give and take.
This is delicate work. It needs a close eye, careful hands
and patience. Threads unspool behind closed doors.
Tiny interactions stich a seam
through corridors and driveways,
shops and schools, bus-stops and libraries.
Neighbours knot their lives into tapestries of shared experience.
Connections flare like beacons in the night.

Those who build beacons
spark songs of warning, of celebration.
Voices bright as torches, proclaiming
we are here!
Those who become beacons,
stand storm-wreathed, tall as lighthouses;
place the lamp of their conviction on a windowsill
to guide our way. When mists close in
we find hope burning, a welcoming space
still open in the city’s heart.

Those who build cities,
tend them over years. The work is hard
the progress slow. There’s always more to do,
they learn to let it go. They pass their tools to other hands
to plant connections, seed new houses,
help communities expand. They watch
as life by life and brick by brick
the future city grows.
The builders change, the work goes on.
The beacons that they lit still burn.

Professor David Olusoga OBE spoke powerfully at our event on Wednesday at Bristol Beacon, which saw my final major speech as Mayor of Bristol.

Watch his introduction from the start of this video, and read below. After the city poet’s new poem and my speech, David and I were then in conversation at Bristol Beacon.

2016-2024

Good evening and welcome to Bristol Beacon. My name is David Olusoga, and I’m here to introduce the evening’s events and to offer some of my own thoughts.

One of the depressing things about being an historian is that you discover that almost all of the best historical quotes are made up.

One of the best made up quotes, that almost certainly wasn’t said by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is this: “There are decades where nothing happens; and then there are weeks when decades happen.”

Well, it really feels like we’ve been through a lot of those sorts of weeks over the past eight years.

As many commentators and philosophers have noticed, it does really feel as if the pace of change – the sheer velocity at which economic, political, global, military events impact upon our lives – has suddenly accelerated.

The eight years since Marvin became mayor have been years of astonishing, bewildering, disorientating change. Indeed so much has happened that, since 2016, the Britain of just eight years ago almost feels like another country.

Let me give you some statistics.

Back in 2016, the UK had the world’s fifth largest economy. It is now sadly recognised that we are either in sixth or seventh, depending on how you calculate it, in those rankings.

Goldman Sachs estimate that the UK economy grew 5% less over the past eight years than other comparable countries – and for millions of people, what this means is that, in effect, they have not personally financially recovered from the great recession of 2008/09.

And there have been other worrying developments. Before 2016 you had to go back to the year 1812 to find a British politician killed in office – other than by Irish Republicans. Since 2016, two British MPs have been killed in office – both by extremists: a white supremacist in one case, a jihadi in the other. And I’m speaking to you in a week in which Diane Abbott has been the victim of words that I just can’t quite believe have emerged from a senior political donor, words that have not been condemned as rapidly or as fulsomely as I believe they should have done.

Since 2016, Britain – the nation that very recently was regarded as almost stereotypically stable and almost boring in its politics – has seen political chaos. We have had five Prime Ministers in the past eight years: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss briefly, and Rishi Sunak.

Over the same period, we have had seven Chancellors of the Exchequer: George Osborne, Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi – for 63 days – Kwasi Kwarteng – for 38 days – and now Jeremy Hunt.

For anyone running a city there have been additional challenges – on top of all that background chaos. Over that same eight year period, there have been eight Secretaries of State for the government department covering local government. They are, in case you have forgotten: Greg Clark, Sajid Javid, James Brokenshire, Robert Jenrick, Michael Gove, Greg Clark again, Simon Clarke, and Michael Gove again.

Not only have there been eight ministers for the government department covering local government, that department has itself changed its name three times.

On top of that political disorientating change and chaos, we have also – of course – been through a global pandemic, for the first time since the first years after the First World War. We have seen the passing of the longest serving monarch in British history, and for the first time in seven decades the funeral of a monarch and a coronation.

And for the first time since 1945 there is a major, protracted conflict on European soil; indeed a war that is being fought, right now as we speak, on some of the same battlefields on which the titanic battles of the Second World War were also fought.

Now, to have been a political leader, whether in Westminster or in City Hall, and to have navigated through that period – to have lasted eight years in that period, to have had the resilience to last eight years through that period – in itself feels like an achievement.

Because local government and city administration have certainly not been a place within which political leaders or would-be political leaders could have sought shelter from the political and economic storms of the 2016 to 2024 era.

We are now increasingly aware that this has been an unique and uniquely troubling time for anyone involved in the administration of British cities. Since 2010, local councils in England have experienced an age of constant diminution of their funding.

The Local Government Information Unit – just a few weeks ago – revealed in its latest report – the true scale of what I think we have to call the crisis facing local government and local government leadership. Once inflation and other factors have been taken into account, the funding shortfall now facing UK councils equates to a reduction in their spending power – from 2010 – of around 50%.

And, according to the Local Government Association, councils are spending £1.74 billion supporting 104,000 households living in temporary accommodation, the highest figures since records began.

Right now – in March 2024 – according to the Local Government Association, almost one in five local authorities may – over the course of 2024 – have no choice but to ask their chief financial officers to issue section 114 notices: statutory notices issued by councils who are unable to meet their expenditure commitments from their income.

This is exactly what happened late last year – just 90 miles from where we are tonight – in Birmingham. That situation has forced the council there to recently announce cuts to its arts and culture budget of 100%.

This in a city that is regularly a contender for the title of the second city of what is after all still the sixth or seventh richest nation on earth. It was reported that, at the meeting at which that decision to cut the Birmingham arts and culture budget by 100% was made, councillors were literally in tears.

Where does that leave Bristol in 2024? Well, the Chancellor’s Budget saw another one-year settlement – the sixth time this has happened in a row. That means the council has little certainty and therefore little capacity to plan and think longer term.

And that one year budget included no new investment for adult social care – a cost that currently represents almost 45% of Bristol City Council’s revenue budget for the coming year. And no new investment in temporary accommodation – another huge pressure.

We tend to use the phrases ‘local government’ and ‘local politics’ almost in pejorative ways. As if the choices facing local leaders and city administrators are somehow small, somehow petty.

But most government is delivered to most people, most of the time through local rather than national government. Our encounters with the State for the most part take place in the domestic, community level. Government – as it impacts upon our actual lives – is more than often local government rather than national government.

And the running of cities is anything but small or petty.

The city of Bristol has an economy of £15 billion. That economy is fuelled by the 479,000 of us who think of ourselves as Bristolians. Who live across a city district that covers 42 square miles. A city that contains two universities both recognised as world class. A city that is home to numerous established businesses as well as a growing number of dynamic start-ups. A city that is a centre for aerospace, banking, media. A city that has the highest graduate retention rate of any city other than London.

But there are of course two Bristols.

Over recent years, you can’t have failed to notice, there has been a constant stream of newspaper articles and Sunday features describing a mini-exodus of people leaving London in order to move to and settle in Bristol. This was particularly so after the pandemic and the lockdowns. Bristol is said to be the number one destination for those seeking an escape from the capital.

But those articles – that offer tips and guidance for people leaving London and setting up in Bristol – tend to be illustrated with the iconic images of Clifton, the harbourside or Redland.

And they make no mention of the other Bristol. That city, in which there are over 20,000 people on the housing waiting list and 1,500 households – 1,500 families – living in temporary accommodation.

To be mayor of Bristol, to hold that office for eight years, is to be mayor of both of those cities.

It is to have to face competing demands and to have to do the most difficult thing that there is, which is to leave a room having made a choice when none of the options are what you would want to do and all of them will upset someone.

And never more so when it comes to perhaps the greatest social issue of our age in this country – the housing crisis and the desperate need to build more homes.

For eight years the person walking into those rooms and making those decisions has been Marvin. The person trying to find some balance of interests between the populations of those two Bristols has been Marvin.

Among other things, I work as a newspaper columnist. I am invited to critique, to analyse, sometimes to make fun, of the decisions and the statements made by politicians. What I am never asked to do is to take responsibility for decisions that I make myself.

In watching Marvin over the past eight years I have been reminded of something that it is too easy to forget – and that too often we do forget – which is that leadership, government and administration of cities or countries is just about the hardest thing that we as human beings do. Just about the hardest thing that we can ask anyone, any of our fellow citizens, to do.

It is of course right that political leaders are held to account. It is right that we ask them to explain their decisions and justify their actions. But in doing so, we do also need to try and remember just how extraordinarily challenging such positions, such roles are – even in times easier than our own.

Bristol is a city which was planned, developed and built with cars as a priority. But this approach, as well as our city’s rapidly growing population, combined with the lack of alternative options, often results in congestion and poor air quality.

This administration has worked to tackle this by providing residents with improved transport alternatives. At a strategic level we’ve improved bus prioritisation, secured Clean Air Zone support and even opened new railway stations. At a local level, we’ve looked to take a Liveable Neighbourhoods approach that improves walking and cycling choices making spaces safer.

Retrofitting changes to car dominated spaces can be a challenge, and can have negative consequences for some people – but it can also positive benefits for areas by making other transport choices better, more green space or improved air quality. Acknowledging that tension has been a core part to our approach to community engagement over several years to design a scheme.

We’re proud to announce that, after this extensive co-design and consultation with local residents since 2022, we will be moving ahead and trialling a liveable neighbourhood scheme in parts of St George, Redfield and Barton Hill. The trial scheme will likely be installed later this summer. In the meantime, 15 cycle hangars are set to be installed on 14 roads across the project area.

This will see measures, such as modal filters, traffic calming, pocket parks and bus gates, installed as part of a trial. If successful, the trial measures would be replaced with permanent infrastructure that would also include extra street lighting, new crossings with traffic signals, sections of cycle track and street trees. 

The trial will aim to deliver a safe, healthy, inclusive, and attractive environment where everyone can breathe clean air, have access to better quality green spaces, and feel a proud of their area.

Community feedback, gathered during two rounds of public engagement, sits at the heart of the plans we’ve developed. Many people said that they love living in this part of east Bristol but some worry about road safety, air pollution, and want more places to connect as a community – we ran a second engagement exercise.

This involved presenting a range of measures, such as pocket parks, street lighting, cycle lanes and new road layouts, in a design toolkit that could be used to address some of these concerns.

By hosting workshops and online interactive maps, people plotted where they would like to see these measures introduced on streets across the pilot area. The results are available in the engagement report. We have now completed the statutory Traffic Regulation Order process which allows us to move forward.

It was disappointing that a local opposition councillor could not publicly endorse the pilot project and investment in the area. It’s always easier to support things in principle rather than delivery in practice.

We know that making a scheme like this happen requires ambition to get things done.

Other British cities with liveable neighbourhoods have seen positive results. While not every scheme worked, the vast majority are still in place. Other cities such as York and Birmingham are seeing high level of support for schemes already implemented.

The East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood pilot sits alongside eight years of work to improve bus journey reliability and encourage walking, wheeling and cycling, creating a healthier and connected city.

This includes our work pedestrianising the Old City and Cotham Hill; completing Portway Park & Ride, Bristol’s first new train station in almost a century; delivering Ashley Down Station; and segregated cycle paths on key travel routes across the city.

However, to completely meet the challenges Bristol faces, our city needs a mass transit system that is segregated and reliable, with underground sections where necessary to avoid major road closures. We have paved the way for others to get this done.

This afternoon I joined Councillor Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor of Bristol, at M Shed, ahead of tomorrow’s launch of the Bristol Legacy Foundation: a new chapter in our city’s journey in grappling with the legacies of slavery.

An extended ‘history of protest’ display, including the Colston statue, opens tomorrow at the same Bristol museum. In that exhibition, I offer these reflections on events before, during, and after its toppling:

“I have lots of thoughts and feelings about the Colston statue, what happened to it and what happened around it. Its place of honour in the middle of Bristol was objectionable to me. I’m Jamaican. He may have traded one of my ancestors. Having said that, as Mayor of the city, I cannot condone people taking ropes to haul it down. And yet, at the same time, I cannot help but see and feel the historical poetry in the way the statue was treated that day.

“I do think some people have failed to understand, or perhaps chosen to overlook, the dynamic that exists between me, as a mixed-race black man from a working-class family, and Mayor, and what happened to the statue. It is complicated.

“It was an event that offers the opportunity to peel the layers back for deeper insights. For example, the statue was pulled down by four white people in a pre-meditated act, in public, in full view of police, on camera. They were all charged with criminal damage and opted to plead not guilty, taking their cases to the Crown Court. Their defences included that their sensibilities were offended by the statue, and they criticised the city’s elected black leadership for not doing enough on racism.

“So I ask whether four black people would have the confidence to take such a gamble and, if they had, would they have had the same likelihood of a not guilty verdict? If not, then what we saw was an exercise in middle-class white privilege, alongside a declaration of anti-racism. A number of things can be true at the same time.

“We have seen that dramatic symbolic acts can be important catalysts for change. For example, the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 led to two Race Relations Acts. But when symbolic acts are not accompanied by programmes of concrete action, they can be more about satisfying the immediate, emotional needs of members of privileged groups, than about changing the actual political and economic status of people in oppressed groups.”

*Check against delivery*

Welcome to Bristol Beacon.

This is an appropriate venue for my last speech.  This building captures many of the complexities and contradictions that is Bristol.

I’m a black, mixed race mayor descended from enslaved Africans – the great, great, great grandson of Samuel Richardson, who was hung by the British for participating in the Morant Bay Rebellion.

I am of working class stock: Irish migrants who settled in South Wales, my Welsh grandfather and the Bryer family in Bristol. And I stand here as mayor of a city with a history of entrenched inequalities and one which prospered and expanded through the profits of slavery.

This building was renamed from the wealthy slaver Colston. And it happened on my watch.

The city reaction has been mixed.  Some will always call it the Colston Hall and will never come to the Beacon. Others had refused to attend the Colston Hall. They’re all Bristolians.

It was a key building, deteriorating in the middle of the city. I was faced with its closure and agreed to proceed with its renovation.

There were three major decision-making points where the costs increased: the original cost plan was £39million.

Then it came back as £50 million with a contingency of £20 million. After the complexities were discovered – it became £100 million. And ultimately, £130 million. 

At every stage the best thing was to proceed, not only because of sunk costs but because of the positive impact on the city.  

But our decision wasn’t just about getting this world class music venue. It was to get rid of a liability – a building, closed, derelict and deteriorating in the middle of the city.

I have 49 days to go.  It has been a real honour to be mayor of Bristol.

We have all been on an incredible journey together. Let’s remember what we have overcome since 2016.  

As David outlined, it’s been a time of national political chaos.

We’ve had austerity, the biggest squeeze on local government finance in history, bankrupting several councils including two of the UK’s biggest cities.

Internationally we’ve had the economic and social harm caused by Brexit, the global pandemic, a war in Europe.

And rampant inflation resulting in the cost of living crisis, itself increasing the need and demand for public services while pushing up the costs of providing those services.

We have had a series of migration crises. And we have had a growing understanding of the climate and ecological emergencies.

Across wider politics we’ve faced the surge of political populism, the blessing and curse of social media and the rise of fake news, and a record decline of trust in politics.

Throughout, we have operated in the world’s most centralised democracy, where cities only control about 5% of their revenue.   

The money we do get from government remains subject to competition, short term and unpredictable.  

And all of these are laid on top of Bristol’s underlying persistent challenges. 

A city the Resolution Foundation suggested was one of the worst cities in which to be born poor. An unequal city fractured along race and class lines. A city with the worst affordability ratio of all major cities outside London.

But we are still standing.

And more than this, we have delivered: from housing to climate change and employment.

The record of our time here has been led by a mantra of homes and hunger and hope.

On homes:   

14,500 homes will have been built since 2016 including many affordable and social.

More houses, and more affordable houses will be built in the city this year than in any year since 2004, when a Labour government was supporting cities to build.  We have the biggest council house building programme in a generation.

With Private sector partnerships, we have delivered the Ambulance Station, Wapping Wharf, the Paintworks, Hartcliffe Campus, and the Launchpad housing scheme.

We have houses being built in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods.

In Southmead at Elderberry Walk. In Henbury, we are building council houses in Richardson Close, as we did in Alderman Moore in Ashton Vale.  In Lockleaze, we have 185 homes in Bonnington Walk – and 268 homes in Romney House being built by our council owned company, Goram Homes.   

Western Harbour master planners were appointed this week. 

And we will deliver on other major infrastructure and housing projects, from St Phillips Marsh and Frome Gateway alongside Temple Quarter including the £500 million university campus, the £350 million Temple Island and £100 million Temple Meads development.

And, we will redevelop the St James area of the city. This started last week with the agreement to build on the Premier Inn site into iconic towers in the city centre as well as representing the shift to modern, high-density co-living.

On hunger:

We have 22,000 children in the city who are eligible for free school meals. In the financial year 23-24 alone, we’ve issued £4.5 million in vouchers for those children during the school holidays. Since the start of 2021, we’ve issued 435,000 vouchers, totalling £13 million.

On hope:

Through the Bristol WORKS programme and the commitment of city employers, we have provided 30,000 meaningful experiences of work for young people who would normally not have access.

We have tackled the infrastructure challenges that have been ignored for decades, including restoring the harbour walls and sluice gates. Our bridges are being renovated, the Chocolate Path has been restored, and our road network is being maintained with increased funding for potholes.

With our partner, YTL, we are delivering the fourth biggest arena in the UK and the most sustainable in Europe.

On leadership, we have honoured the 50:50 campaign with half the cabinet being women since 2016, within the most diverse political leadership the city has ever known.

On transport,  we have pedestrianised the Old City: Corn Street and King Street with bus gates introduced and public transport priority through the city centre. Other areas of pedestrianisation like Cotham Hill and Clifton Village are supporting traders, and we have increased dedicated cycle lanes including £720,000 of investment in a new cycle scheme through Old Market; we have offered free electric bike loans and cycle training and are installing cycle hangers across the city – and we brought scooters to the city.

We kept to our manifesto commitments including keeping all children’s centres and libraries open.

We supported the creative sector, bringing Channel 4 to Bristol and introduced Agent of Change to protect music venues.

On Climate Change, we launched a world first with Bristol City Leap ensuring £1 billion of investment into our decarbonisation – this was on top of the £100 million already invested in decarbonisation work since 2016.   

Our City Leap deal means that £771 million will be invested to cut energy bills, create green jobs, and cut carbon emissions by 150,000 tonnes, by 2029.

We have planted over 95,000 trees since 2016 and contributed to a deal with Ambition Lawrence Weston which erected the tallest onshore wind turbine in England.

All of this will contribute heavily to our One City goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030s

We cleaned up our air with a Clean Air Zone – but that’s not the deliverable. It’s the total £40 million package of support we secured to mitigate its impacts on business and households. This money includes support for people to change their vehicles, free bus tickets, discounts on car club membership and £2 million for clean buses.

And that isn’t anywhere near everything but we don’t have all evening.

It’s also been a journey for me, as a person in leadership.

In 2012 I was on stage at Burges Salmon with three white men in their sixties and seventies.

I didn’t think people looked at me as the mayor.

This is what I would call a justified projection, because I actually didn’t think I looked like a mayor and was projecting that onto the crowd. Leadership didn’t look like me.  

David Cameron had been in town promoting the mayoral model; the journalist present interviewed the other potential candidates but didn’t think it worth interviewing me.

Most of you won’t know this but when I did win, it took five or six months before I was comfortable to introduce myself as the Mayor.  

Being the Mayor has been like putting on a suit jacket that was too big, only for one day to wake up and realise you have grown into it.

I went from an outsider to standing up at the State Of the City in 2016.

My mum and her best friend Jean were in the front row. I looked at them and said “Who would have thought it?”

My journey has now taken me and my mum; Kirsten; and my sister, Dionne, last week to Windsor Castle where I received my OBE.

We’ve had a series of young people through my office over the years and we share this journey with them and advise them to be ambitious even if their confidence is not keeping up with their ambition. 

I experience my relationship with Bristol and  – I would say – Bristol’s relationship with me, through race and class.

It’s the framework through which I have experienced our city’s social structures, journalism and activism.

I respect that other people will experience their relationship with Bristol in other ways, but race and class have dominated my life journey.

In that context, becoming and being mayor has been a journey of healing for my relationship with Bristol.

Around 1987, myself and four friends went to a party in a church youth club at Zion Chapel, Coronation Road. We were 15 year old black teenagers.    

Afterwards, walking home over Redcliff Hill, a group of a dozen white men started shouting racist abuse at us and chased us. I have no doubt if they had caught us, we would been in serious trouble.  

Throw forward to 2012. I am in Lawrence Weston, campaigning to be Mayor. I knock on a door. It opens and a big white guy, with tattooed arms, shaved head.  

My early warning kicked in and I presumed the worst.  He then went on to say “I’m voting for you – you’re one of us”.  

I will also share that my experience in the city through the prism of race and class, as Mayor has left me with a greater sense of belief in the authenticity of some of the Merchant Venturers than in some of the noisiest anti-racism and social justice activists.  

And it’s left me feeling a greater sense of connection with the Cenotaph counter protestors than I do with the Colston Four. 

I stress feeling – because it’s been natural and involuntary, a product of a shared story.

We came in with commitment to get things done.

The truth is delivery is a tightrope for politicians because it means making changes.

And change always means political conflict.

There is a path of least resistance in politics that says do little and avoid controversy. Stay away from housing delivery. Stay away from big transport solutions. Focus on making announcements, pushing gimmicks and exploiting photo opportunities. Then blame the government and other outside forces for ongoing social challenges.

But that serves the politician rather than the people and we came in to make a difference.

Plimsoll Bridge, the swing bridge over the Cumberland Basin, is at end of life. We were told it would cost £40 million to fix.

But rather than spending £40 million keeping things as they are, we saw an opportunity to put that into regenerating the harbour – with 2,000 homes and modern flood defences.   

The result was the Western Harbour vision, a Brownfield site converted to homes that are a seven minute bike ride and 25 minute walk from the city centre, rather than a spare piece of land dominated by a road flyover.    

I thought the plan would be welcomed. I was wrong.    

I was invited to Holy Trinity Church Hall with residents of the area. There were at least 300 inside with others unable to get in. The overwhelming mood was anger.  

I stood on stage by myself listening as some people asked legitimate questions and others accused me of all sorts. After an hour I spoke.

I suggested that before focussing on the point of disagreement and assuming my motivations – we needed to move upstream and see if we can agree on the truth about the Bristol we were living in.

I offered these fundamentals.

We are 42 square miles… We aren’t getting any more land.

We have a residential population of around 476,000 people which is expected to grow to 550,000 by 2050.

We have more than 22,000 people on our housing waiting list, with over 1,500 families in temporary accommodation.

We have to solve the housing crisis in the context of climate and ecological emergencies, which mean prioritising high-density development on brown field land in the heart of the city where people don’t need cars.

The questions remain:

Do we agree we need to solve the housing crisis?

Do we agree that if we build homes, they need to be built somewhere?

Do we agree brownfield sites in the middle of the city are better than greenfield locations that build in car dependency?

I am happy for people to say no at any point in that sequence, as long as they own the consequences.

If we could just agree on the challenge Bristol faces and the limitations on options available to us, our city conversations would be more constructive and pragmatic than destructive and conspiratorial.

I will add to the list of Bristol fundamentals:

One in five of our children live in low-income households.

We are one of the worst cities for racial inequality.

We are an unequal city in which almost 100% of Clifton teenagers progress to university, compared to 1 in 12 in Hartcliffe.

Almost 10% of our households experience fuel poverty and 4% experience food insecurity.

There is a gap in healthy years life expectancy of over 16 years between the richest and poorest areas in Bristol.

It’s important we understand and respect the raw material of Bristol as the framework for our debates about priorities and the costs of action and importantly, the costs of inaction.

Sometimes it’s seemed as though we are dealing with different Bristols.

Some of the argument and accusation that’s come at our leadership is grounded in a Bristol that doesn’t seem to be facing a housing crisis and a transport crisis; doesn’t have a rapidly growing population; has an infinite land supply; has a city council that is not limited by austerity; can deliver decarbonisation through political will alone without the need to raise billions of pounds to pay for it; and has the time to prioritise declarations of principles before the need to get things done.

The failure to ground ourselves in the same Bristol and a failure to work within the discipline of the same truth opens us up to conflict that is noisier than it is useful. It leaves us with a shallow and self-centred framework through which we misinterpret – accidentally or intentionally – the motives of others.

When we make decisions, we are acutely aware of the following realities.

We are facing multiple interacting crisis that require action now. The longer we delay, the worse they will get, and the more intrusive and expensive the solution

Every action has a cost. But inaction also has a cost.

And you won’t get everything you want.

I will add another element to the raw material that is Bristol. Our city culture.

We are a city of contradictions. Among them is the way we combine being home to some of the nation’s leading talent; a thriving creative sector; and a high number of business start ups, with a collective lack of self-belief that, when its full blown, turns into a debilitating cynicism.

It is born of past failures – a historic inability to deliver big projects, an arena, transport solutions, homes. But it puts a handbrake on today’s ambition.

We’ve seen this clearly around mass transit. We must solve the transport problem and that simply must include underground where needed. The alternative is gridlock or the inevitable failure to overcome the obstacles of trying to deliver a 100% overground system. The National Infrastructure Commission backs an ambitious approach, recommending we have a share of £20 billion set aside to help cities deliver mass transit.  

It would have taken lots of work. But we are now in danger of guaranteeing it won’t happen because a number of local actors have failed to show the necessary ambition.

Compare this to the culture we managed to build around Temple Quarter, it’s because we came together around a bold ambition that we secured £95 million.  We maintained support from Sir Ed Lister, Boris Johnson’s Chief of Staff; Peter Hendy, Chair of Network Rail; The University of Bristol; Homes England; WECA; and Government Ministers. And we stayed united and committed. We got the money over the line and now the cranes are on site.  

Coming up with the motions, petitions, and opinion pieces is actually the easy part. Working with the city to build a shared front to raise the finance and working through the trade offs is harder.

We have been unapologetically ambitious for Bristol.

When I came in, the political debate was dominated by car parking and fun Sundays. 

Today, the city talks about inclusion, homes and growth, billion pound regeneration programmes, carbon reduction and the climate challenge, biodiversity, race and class, and building a future city.

And from giving a TED talk at the global conference in Vancouver, to launching 3Ci, and speaking on behalf of the global Mayors Migration Council at several UN conferences on migration and refugees, we are shaping national and international agendas.

Along with the CEO of the RSA Andy Haldane, I co-chaired the Urban Futures Commission. The report we produced is – dare I say – the plan for UK’s cities, showing how we can unlock billions in productivity.

We need to take Bristol’s hopes and potential seriously. The people of this city must be prioritised as people with real lives, not just votes to be harvested.  

We also need leaders who understand Bristol is a collective act. It’s not just about the council.

Bristol One City was the vehicle we set up to bring the city together.

At the City Gathering just last Friday, held in the Beacon, with 300 City Partners present.

City Priorities were affirmed – focussing on race and housing, the race and gender pay gaps, and school exclusions.

That’s how we will maximise the chances of success. Collaboration is how we won Channel 4, its how we got the money for Temple Quarter, and delivered Bristol City Leap. It’s how we have got so many homes built and an arena on the way. We need to learn from this model.

We have put a pipeline of projects in place that will land over the coming decade:

Temple Quarter; The Debenhams site; The Galleries; Western Harbour; Hengrove Park; Frome Gateway; Baltic Wharf; The Fruit Market.

Add in the Goram Homes business plan to that list, and that’s over 18,000 more homes on their way, to be agreed, consented, and built if the city can keep delivering. 

We have delivered eight balanced budgets and the financial pressures will continue for local government. The future leadership will need to protect libraries, children’s centres, and the Council Tax Reduction Scheme.

And the work will need to continue to transform the drivers of increasing costs: adult social care and children’s care, including special educational needs and home to school transport.

This is all going to need a One City approach.

Leadership is a collective act. So thanks are always due:

The senior team at Bristol City Council.

And the political cabinet. I would particularly like to thank my two deputy mayors Craig Cheney and Asher Craig.

I must thank our city partners – the leader of the cities key institutions and sectors who have worked with us in the city office.

I would also thank my Mayor’s Office team.

And, personally, my friends and family; my wife, Kirsten; my kids.

For the best part of the last eight years, I have had on the wall of my office an extract from a speech by US President Teddy Roosevelt, from 1910, often referred to as ‘the Man in the Arena’. I want to share it, as we think about our roles in the future of Bristol:

“It is not the critic who counts;  not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”

Thank you.

It’s March and we are getting ready to open our doors again to welcome eligible children and young people, new and old, to Your Holiday Hub (YHH) during the school holidays.

The programme, funded through the government’s Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, is specifically for pupils who receive benefits-related free school meals (FSM), offering fun and fully funded activities to take part in which include a healthy meal and snacks to eat.

Available sessions include cookery, crafts, sports, forest school, day trips, performing arts and much more. You can find out what’s on offer by using the Your Holiday Hub website and this spring, we have around 54 organisations across the city taking part, meaning there are hundreds of activities available from 2-12 April.

We’re really proud of Your Holiday Hub (YHH) and how many people have benefited from this programme since it began three years ago. With our partners across Bristol, we started it to help local families during the school holidays and in 2023, we saw nearly 4,000 children and young people in receipt of FSM take part, with just under 40,000 sessions attended and meals shared during that time.

Providers, parents and young people who came along to some of the sessions let us know their thoughts, and below are just a few of the comments we have received recently:

“Matthew has taken part in sessions at St Werburghs City Farm, attending every YHH activity that they have done and is now a regular at their youth club. Without YHH, Matthew wouldn’t have known anything about the farm as he found the session through the website. During winter, he took a lead on one of the activities after developing a real sense of ownership over the farm, particularly being able to tell people where things were in the kitchen.”

A parent with children who attended sessions at Somali Youth Voice said: “We are family of seven, I often find it difficult to know what to do with children during school holidays, your YHH programs are big relief for us, the food and activities provide young people with fun, and an opportunity to get involved with different activities, releasing the negative energy. It significantly contributes to their mental health and wellbeing. It brings a smile back to their face; excitement starts when they see you setting up.”

“My mother could not afford to take me to a holiday but these activities have helped me improve social skills and make new friends in the community,” said a 14-year old at Bristol Horn Youth Concern CIC.

A young person who joined a Bristol Bricks session said the food was “amazing, my favourite food ever” and now they regularly access the youth programme and attend the youth theatre too.

After festive food hampers were handed out by Oasis Hub South Bristol during the winter break for families to take home, one mother took the time to send a message back to the team, “This hamper had all of the things we would love to be able to give to our children, they are very special, thank you.”

These comments highlight the amazing job our providers are doing across the city to keep children entertained and fed when they are not at school, and we are delighted to welcome everyone back this year. If you want to find out more about the programme, go to the YHH website and search for things happening near you.