News / Marvin Rees
Rees: ‘Being the last mayor of Bristol doesn’t hurt me’
Marvin Rees says that he will “inevitably” miss being Bristol’s mayor, saying that leading his home city since 2016 has been “an incredible honour”.
It remains unknown what Rees will do next. Something related to his deep-rooted Christian faith is a possibility. Could he move to the USA? He might even be elevated to the House of Lords.
But for now, in his final interview as mayor with ITV, Rees looked back at what he described as an “incredible” eight years.
is needed now More than ever
ITV presenter Lovell asked Rees if he thinks people feel that he made a difference? “I think so,” the outgoing mayor replied. “I mean, feedback I get, undoubtedly there’ll be a lot of people who say, you know, nothing’s happened or whatever.
“But 14,500 homes during our time. We have got food out. We have a citywide system for getting food out to people.
“Welcoming Places over the winter period. Places people go to be warm. We set out to set up 20. The city ended up with 106.”
Rees admitted that he “put walls up” during his time as mayor. “That’s defensive walls… You learn. I’ve learned to to perform.”
He added: “There’s a quote from a famous feminist whose name escapes me but she said, ‘Speak even when you’re shaking inside’.
“I’ve been in plenty of situations in which I’m shaking inside. But when I speak to you, I’ll look in the eye and I’ll stand strong, I’ll stand straight, even if inside I’m shaking.
“And it’s something I tell young people from my background all the time: you will not feel like you belong, but you go and present.”
Could Keir Starmer elevate Marvin Rees to the House of Lords? – photo: Labour Party
Being the last mayor of Bristol “doesn’t hurt me”, Rees said.
“I mean, what can I do? I’ve made my pitch and it’s, you know, I’m not emotionally impacted by whether people do or do not hear what I have to say or follow the evidence…
“It may be personal for some people. I have no doubt that some people would have made that decision (to scrap the role of mayor in a referendum in 2022) because they thought it got at me.
“My sense of self worth is clearly impacted but it’s moved beyond dependency on what other people think about me. I left that a long time ago in many ways.”
Rees said that Bristol now has a “national reputation now for housing delivery” as being a “national exemplar for offsite manufactured homes” such as the Zed Pods next to St George’s Park.
Rees reiterated that Temple Island was the wrong place to build an arena and that the city needs a mass transit system with underground elements.
And Rees told Lovell that we “need a chapter change in the method of moving people around” after she said that there was a perception in some quarters that a Bristol underground was “bonkers”.
Main photo: Marvin Rees / X
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