The biggest political moments in Bristol in 2023

It was a momentous 12 months of politics in Bristol with strikes, protests, shock U-turns, the Barton House evacuation, Marvin Rees’s last full calendar year as Bristol mayor, and his failed bid to run as an MP.

West of England metro mayor Dan Norris got into hot water for having giant images of him and his dog plastered on a bus, hopes for an underground for the city region were torpedoed and now look dead in the water, and Bristol Beacon finally reopened after a £132m refurbishment that almost tripled in costs.

It didn’t stop there. Bristol’s lord mayor spent a month in a coma at the BRI, government watchdogs gave Avon Fire & Rescue Service the lowest possible rating for its primary purpose of responding to emergencies, and Avon & Somerset Police’s chief constable declared her force “institutionally racist”.

Here are the 13 biggest Bristol political moments of 2023:

Barton House

Barton Hill house residents protest in City Hall in November – photo: Blaise Cloran

Bristol City Council declared a major incident on November 14 and told the 400 people who live in the 14-storey Barton House tower block in Barton Hill to evacuate their homes after surveys suggested the building could collapse if there was a fire in a single flat.

Confusion, uncertainty and anger came in the weeks that followed, with complaints about conditions in the city centre Holiday Inn where the majority were moved to, while police were called to a council meeting after tenants confronted the mayor with unanswered questions about their future.

Yet just six days later, City Hall chiefs gave residents the unexpected good news that further investigations had revealed none of the structural issues that had prompted the evacuation and that they would eventually be allowed home.

There are still significant issues to be sorted, including installing a new communal fire alarm system and checks for legionella in the water supply at Bristol’s oldest council high-rise. Tenants will find out more in the new year.

Underground

Metro mayor Dan Norris squashed all hopes of an underground in Bristol, saying he would not “waste a penny more of taxpayers’ money on an underground” – photo: Bristol Film Office

The long-held dream of a Bristol underground was shattered in October when metro mayor Dan Norris vetoed the plan as “unaffordable and unrealistic” at a meeting of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), which he heads.

A report to the committee said the cost would be up to £18bn – a figure first revealed by the Local Democracy Reporting Service in February.

This astronomical price tag was disputed by fellow Labour mayor Rees who said it would be roughly half that amount.

The leaders of South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils, as well as Weca’s own transport officers and the Local Enterprise Partnership chairman, backed Bristol’s mayor, saying all options must remain on the table. But Norris said he would not “waste a penny more of taxpayers’ money on an underground”.

The whole future of the West of England’s mass transit was left in limbo because the three council leaders blocked all moves to continue only with an overground network with “cut-and-cover” tunnels, which the Weca mayor favours.

They were concerned that this would mean years of roadworks, disruption and a serious threat to businesses from the need to dig up stretches of Gloucester Road and Church Road, which Rees called “an intervention of epic proportions”.

Busgate

Dan Norris found himself in hot water when his birthday buses campaign featuring him and his pet dog was deemed “clearly unlawful” – photo: WECA

One of the more bizarre and talked-about political stories of the year involved Norris, his dog Angel, a First double-decker and the “unlawful” spending of £10,000 of taxpayers’ cash, which unfolded over the last few weeks of 2023.

Top Weca legal and finance officers ruled that the money that paid for three giant images of the mayor, one 3m tall, and two of his pooch, intended to promote the Birthday Bus free travel scheme and tackle a severe driver shortage, broke local government rules by amounting to political self-promotion.

Norris vehemently denied any wrongdoing, insisting mayors must be “visible” and that the bus “wrap” was aimed at restoring bus services rather than his own profile.

But Weca committee – comprising only the Lib Dem leaders of South Gloucestershire and B&NES councils after Rees boycotted it amid concerns about the legality and fairness of the “improper” meeting, concluded that the spending was “clearly unlawful”.

The public never got to see the bus wrap because it was pulled by Weca chief executive Richard Ennis when he found out.

Marvin’s Parliament ambitions dashed

Damien Egan, previously Lewisham mayor, will run for MP in new Bristol North East constituency next year – photo: Damien Egan

Marvin Rees missed out on his chance to represent Bristol in the House of Commons when Labour members made the surprise decision to instead select Lewisham mayor Damien Egan to contest the new Bristol North East constituency.

It was a bitter and unexpected blow for the city’s mayor who appeared a shoo-in to be the party’s candidate at the 2024 General Election.

Egan, who grew up in Kingswood, New Cheltenham and Staple Hill, persuaded the majority of about 700 delegates at the final hustings in July that he was their best shot. Rees has said he would not stand for a seat outside Bristol.

Bristol Beacon reopens

Memories of Bristol Beacon’s spiralling costs were all but forgotten on the building’s reopening night – photo: Giulia Spadafora

Bristol Beacon finally reopened with great fanfare and acclaim in November after a £132m revamp. But the year began with Bristol City Council cabinet approving yet another hike in costs needed to complete the project – almost triple the original budget of £48m.

A total of £84m of the final amount has landed on council taxpayers, while Bristol Music Trust, the charity that runs the concert hall on behalf of the local authority, was stripped of its funding from City Hall and told it must pay back £8m of any profits it makes to help recoup some of the investment.

The council says Bristol Beacon will generate between £324m and £412m to the local economy.

Council tax benefits U-turn

Housing union, Acorn, interrupted a number of full council meetings at City Hall this year to protest council tax slashes and the council’s treatment of Barton House residents, for which they could be banned from future meetings – photo: Mia Vines Booth

February’s full council that set the annual budget approved £3m of cuts to Bristol’s council tax reduction scheme, which gives financial help to thousands of the city’s poorest families to pay the bill, from April 2024.

That sparked a determined campaign from community union Acorn, including protesters disrupting numerous council meetings and the threat of legal action.

For months the Labour administration refused to budge, but in November deputy mayor in charge of finance Craig Cheney announced a surprise U-turn to scrap the proposal.

However, he warned the council would have to find the savings from elsewhere, which will be revealed ahead of January’s cabinet meeting which will recommend next year’s budget to full council the following month.

Strikes

Thousands of school teachers and staff took to the streets in February to protest pay and conditions – photo: Rob Browne

Picket lines became a common sight throughout the year, including the biggest strike in NHS history as medics, from nurses and junior doctors to radiographers and consultants, launched a series of strikes at Bristol hospitals over pay.

Some disputes were resolved but others are still ongoing, with appointments continuing to be cancelled and unions and the Government at loggerheads.

A planned strike by more than 300 Bristol Waste refuse workers was called off after a pay deal was agreed.

Rail ticket offices

A huge protest backed by the metro mayor saw plans to shut every railway ticket office in the Bristol region scrapped soon after they were suggested – photo: Mina Kim

Controversial plans to shut every railway ticket office in the Bristol region were scrapped in a major government U-turn in October. The vast majority of booths across England faced closure, with staff set to move onto platforms and other areas.

A huge protest campaign was backed by the metro mayor, while both Bristol City Council and South Gloucestershire Council unanimously passed motions opposing the idea, with one councillor branding them “staggeringly stupid”.

The proposals, put forward by train operators in July with support from Whitehall, included shutting ticket offices at Bristol Temple Meads, Bristol Parkway, Filton Abbey Wood, Bath Spa, Yate, Oldfield Park and Keynsham, which sold a combined 600,000 paper tickets in 2022.

Damning fire service inspection

Government inspectors found Avon Fire & Rescue Service is “inadequate” at responding to emergencies – the worst possible rating.

They found the 999 mobilisation system crashed during emergency calls and that some employees used “sexist or inappropriate language and disguised this as banter”, a conclusion Chief Fire Officer Simon Shilton, who has introduced a zero-tolerance policy, said was “personally heartbreaking”.

Cross-party councillors on Avon Fire Authority overwhelmingly backed the chief at a meeting in December.

Meanwhile, the service plans to cut 40 frontline full-time firefighters and reduce the size of crews on fire engines to balance the books, which the Fire Brigades Union has slammed as “dangerous”.

Institutional racism

Avon & Somerset Police chief constable Sarah Crew declared the force “institutionally racist” in June – photo: Avon and Somerset Police

Avon & Somerset Police’s top officer declared the force “institutionally racist” in June. Chief Constable Sarah Crew said there was “clear evidence of differential experiences in the way we interact with people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, particularly those who are from Black heritage communities”.

She said “real and profound change” was needed to retain the public’s trust but insisted she was “not talking about what’s in the hearts and minds of most people who work for Avon & Somerset Police”.

Instead, it was about “recognising the structural and institutional barriers that exist and which put people at a disadvantage in the way they interact with policing because of their race”.

Marvin Rees and Conservative police & crime commissioner Mark Shelford backed the statement, but the chief constable was criticised by Police Federation chairman Mark Loker as “virtue signalling”.

Bristol City Council planning rows

The planning system at City Hall has been the focus of a growing series of political spats.

The Labour administration repeatedly accused the opposition Greens of blocking developments while the Greens say their members on the two development control committees voted against applications based on valid planning reasons and that the mayor’s office has interfered in what should be a nonpartisan process.

A public petition echoing those concerns and saying residents had lost faith in the system was debated at full council in December after it passed the 3,500-name threshold.

Protestors held a demonstration outside City Hall in September against plans to knock down Broadwalk shopping centre to make way for flats. Many of the placards were directed at chief development committee chair Richard Eddy –  photo: Mia Vines Booth

That was largely inspired by heavy criticism of development control “A” committee chairman councillor Richard Eddy for how he handled the controversial plan to bulldoze Broadwalk Shopping Centre in Knowle and replace it with the 819-home Redcatch Quarter housing development.

Campaigners claimed he and the head of the mayor’s office, Kevin Slocombe, had “colluded” with the developers – which they vehemently deny – after councillors unanimously rejected the proposed scheme, only for the decision to be unexpectedly reversed at the next meeting where the reasons for refusal were set to be ratified.

Just weeks ago, Labour announced they would boycott the other development control “B” committee amid allegations that their councillors felt “unsafe” and were subjected to “racial and religious abuse” by a member of the public at the end of a meeting where permission was granted for South Bristol Cemetery to expand onto Yew Tree Farm.

Claims by Labour that they had been mistreated at development meetings chaired by Ani Stafford-Townsend led the Green councillor to seek legal advice back in November – photo: Rob Browne

The party claimed the chair, Green councillor Ani Stafford-Townsend, did nothing to stop it and that they no longer had confidence in how the committee was run.

But the Greens claimed video footage of the incident showed Labour had “fabricated” the accusations, calling them “politically motivated”.

Colston statue

The Colston Statue will go on permanent display at the M Shed next year – photo: Martin Booth

The statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston, which was toppled and rolled in the Floating Harbour by protesters in 2020, is set to go on permanent display at the M-Shed museum.

Bristol City Council submitted a planning application in November to “regularise” the fact that the listed monument will not be returned to its plinth in the city centre. That is expected to be decided early in the new year.

About 80 per cent of residents who responded to a consultation said M-Shed was the best place for it.

Lord mayor coma

Bristol’s lord mayor councillor Paul Goggin received a standing ovation on his return to the city council chamber in October following a month in a coma. The Labour backbencher developed pleurisy after a bout of pneumonia in June.

Doctors at the BRI placed him into a medically induced coma and feared for his life.

The lord mayor – a ceremonial role that involves chairing full council meetings and representing the authority at civic occasions – is still recovering from a serious lung condition.

A glimpse of the future?

The final public meeting of the group of councillors deciding how Bristol will be governed from next May descended into chaos in November.

Members shouted over each other, stormed out and failed to agree on points of detail about how money should be shared across the city.

The committee model working group spent months producing the new way of working that will replace the mayoral system, following the 2022 city-wide referendum to scrap the elected role.

It includes eight policy committees and a new position of council leader, similar to the current mayor but with fewer decision-making powers.

The group’s final meeting was supposed to focus on how council funding could be invested in neighbourhoods but spent most of the time arguing.

Roll on, 2024.

Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol and South Gloucestershire 

Main photo: Mia Vines Booth

Read next: 

• Campaigners demand review into Broadwalk shopping centre decision
• Labour councillors to boycott planning meetings
• Acorn members who confronted mayor could be banned from future meetings

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