The year 2024 has been a truly momentous 12 months in politics, on the local, national and international stages.
Bristol City Council saw the end of the mayoral system to be replaced by a cross-party committee model, a new way of working that coincided with the Greens sweeping to power and becoming the biggest party in the chamber at May’s local elections. In the general election in July, Labour stormed to a landslide victory, with the Conservatives obliterated in the West of England’s constituencies.
And on the other side of the pond, Donald Trump re-took the White House four years after losing it, defeating Democrat Kamala Harris in one of the most stunning political comebacks ever. In Bristol, far-right extremists clashed with counter demonstrators as riots broke out around the country, the city council was given a £53million SEND bailout and its planning department was placed into special measures, as was the West of England Combined Authority (Weca).
A controversial hike in allotment fees and the proposed expansion of a cemetery onto wildlife-rich meadows at Bristol’s last working farm became the focus of huge campaigns, with differing levels of success. The council quietly announced a major U-turn over two of its own housing company’s developments, yet another damning report about the Bristol Beacon refurbishment was published, and a mass transit system seems as far away as ever, although a railway station was reopened 60 years after it closed.
The authority admitted institutional discrimination against disabled staff and both Bristol city and South Gloucestershire Council announced contentious reductions in bin collections.
Here we look back at 15 of the biggest political moments of the year.
Bristol’s last mayor Marvin Rees leaves office
Marvin Rees stepped down as elected mayor ahead of the local elections after eight years in charge of Bristol City Council. He had long said he would serve no more than two terms.
But there was no direct replacement, following the landmark city-wide referendum result in 2022 to scrap the role and cabinet and replace it with a council leader with fewer wide-ranging powers and a committee system of cross-party policy groups.
There were many highs and lows for Mr Rees, who initially finished runner-up to independent George Ferguson in the inaugural 2012 mayoral election before winning in 2016 and again in 2021 when the ballot was postponed for a year because of covid.
Not only did he have the pandemic to deal with, along with austerity and Brexit, there were many controversies on his watch, beginning with his decision to abandon his predecessor’s proposed arena on Temple Island and instead build it at the former Filton Airfield on the edge of the city.
The mayor oversaw the Bristol Energy financial disaster and eventual collapse and the Bristol Beacon renovation whose costs spiralled, and he ultimately failed in his wish for an underground for the city region when it was vetoed by fellow Labour metro mayor Dan Norris because it would require anywhere from £8billion to £18billion to deliver.
But he can claim some notable achievements, including the City Leap project to help Bristol decarbonise its energy network which has attracted hundreds of millions of pounds of private sector investment, introducing a “One City” approach with other public and private organisations, helping to secure Channel 4’s move to Bristol and securing £95million of government funding for the enormous Temple Quarter regeneration, with 10,000 new homes to be built near Temple Meads.
Promising 2,000 new homes in Bristol every year during the 2016 campaign, Mr Rees prioritised the housing crisis, with 14,500 homes built during his tenure, including 2,000 in 2023, and setting up the council’s housing company Goram Homes to team up with developers on sites.
He would often cite “Cranes on the horizon” as evidence Bristol was “getting stuff done”.
However, record numbers of people remain in temporary accommodation and on the social housing waiting list. The mayor also had to deal with the aftermath of the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston, which was rolled into the Floating Harbour, during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Cllr Tony Dyer, Leader of Bristol City Council
(Image: Bristol City Council)
Green surge continues at Bristol City Council
The Greens were the big winners at the local elections in Bristol, gaining 10 seats but falling just short of an overall majority with 34 of the 70 councillors at City Hall. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats made gains over the Conservatives, although Labour, which ran the local authority under Mr Rees for eight years, ended with a net loss of two members, down to 21.
The Lib Dems finished with eight councillors, up three, while the Tories lost half of their 14 seats. Among the notable scalps were all three Conservatives in Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze following an enormous swing to the Lib Dems, who replaced them.
Cllr Tony Dyer became the first ever Green leader of the city council. But the political shenanigans barely skipped a beat, with Labour accusing the party of a “backroom deal” with the Liberal Democrats to form a “coalition”, a claim the Greens denied, insisting that the new committee system has no official administration or opposition because it is designed to be collaborative across the aisle.
And when it came to the very first meeting in the brave new world, at full council, a barbed comment from Lib Dem group leader Cllr Jos Clark comparing a Labour candidate – who was wrongly allowed by her party to stand at the polls and had to resign – with “Liz Truss’s lettuce”, was met with outrage and raised voices.
By the admission of most councillors, the committee model is still finding its feet.
General election
Labour won eight of the region’s 10 constituencies, Green co-leader and former Bristol city councillor Carla Denyer took Bristol Central from Labour and the Lib Dems took the other. Nationally it was the worst general election result in the history of the Conservative Party and they were wiped off the map in the West of England.
Prominent Tories such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liam Fox and John Penrose were all ousted. Dan Norris got revenge over Mr Rees-Mogg, who had defeated him 14 years earlier, in North East Somerset & Hanham.
Labour held the other four Bristol seats, including newly created Bristol North East as expected, along with gaining Filton & Bradley Stoke from Conservative incumbent Jack Lopresti, North Somerset from veteran MP Liam Fox and Weston-super-Mare from John Penrose.
In Thornbury & Yate, then-South Gloucestershire Council leader Lib Dem Claire Young replaced Conservative Luke Hall as MP. That led to her resignation at the helm of the local authority, and her replacement was announced in July as longtime Cllr Maggie Tyrrell.
Bristol riots
Shameful scenes in August saw violent clashes in the city centre between far-right demonstrators and counter protesters in scenes echoed across the country, sparked by the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport, Merseyside.
Heroic counter demonstrators and community leaders put their bodies on the line to protect asylum-seeking migrant families at the Mercure Hotel in Redcliff Hill after the premises became a target for the extremists.
The two mass protests descended into ugly scenes at Castle Park and Bristol Bridge before an attempt to storm the hotel was thwarted by the community. It was several minutes before the police were on the scene.
Political leaders issued a joint statement condemning the violence which saw several people injured and flares and items thrown into crowds and at riot police. A second anti-immigration rally, expected four days later in Old Market, never materialised, but resulted in a renewed sense of hope as thousands of counter demonstrators turned out in force.
SEND bailout
Bristol City Council received a £53million government bailout for its massive schools budget deficit. The deal with the Department for Education’s Safety Value programme, made in secret in the spring, meant the local authority could write off its funding black hole caused primarily by soaring demand for provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
In October it emerged that a High Court legal challenge had been granted against the agreement. The previous month, councillors were told that the bailout had barely made a dent in the mammoth shortfall.
Planning department in special measures
The government put Bristol City Council’s planning department in special measures in March following a huge backlog in dealing with applications from developers and homeowners. A recruitment freeze because of funding pressures led to the team losing a third of its staff, leading to it being placed “under designation”
Once the freeze ended, the department still struggled to recruit enough planning officers, partly because of a national shortage of skills, meaning the council had to rely on expensive agency staff. In September, councillors heard that the situation had improved but that it would still take some time for the designation to be lifted.
Special measures means that developers wanting to build fewer than 10 houses can bypass the council and instead apply for planning permission from the government’s Planning Inspectorate.
WECA in special measures
In the same month, the government put the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) – comprising Bristol city, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils – into special measures because of the “poor state of professional relationships” between the organisation’s elected head Dan Norris and council leaders. It ordered them to work better together following years of friction, bickering, name-calling and even a boycott of a committee meeting.
The “best value notice” issued to the combined authority by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities ordered it to set up an independent improvement panel to tackle a host of issues, from poor relationships between political leaders to “confusion” about the combined authority’s purpose.
The notice said one concern identified was “the poor state of professional relationships between the West of England Combined Authority Mayor and the representatives of the constituent members of the Authority which is impacting partnership working and potentially limiting the authority’s ability to optimise strategic opportunities”.
Auditors Grant Thornton had previously warned that the strained relationships between the political leaders were a “significant weakness” and called on them to get along better, but the notice issued in March warned there had been “inconsistent action”.
Another concern was a lack of a “clear, shared narrative” about how Weca would operate for the benefit of the region. Mr Norris, now North East Somerset & Hanham MP, said at the time: “I will be redoubling my efforts to continue to deliver on our important priorities during this frightening cost of living crisis.”
Yew Tree Farm
The row over the proposed expansion onto wildlife-rich meadows at Bristol’s last working farm, Yew Tree Farm in Bedminster Down, rumbled on a year after planning permission was granted in November 2023.
In October 2024, a committee reached a compromise, deciding that the project should go ahead but on a reduced scale. Councillors decided to explore other options for drainage that were less environmentally damaging.
It meant officers would look into how to prevent flooding in the larger graveyard without harming the site of nature conservation interest.
Farmer Catherine Withers had warned that previous drainage plans would pollute a nearby cherished brook. The decision followed concerns that a pond to collect excess rainwater could pollute wildlife haven Colliter’s Brook.
Goram Homes U-turn
In September, the Green chairman of the homes and housing delivery committee unexpectedly announced that the council would no longer be buying the homes that its housing company was building at Baltic Wharf and one part of Hengrove Park.
The homes will still be built, now to be managed instead by a housing association instead of becoming council properties, but the two schemes were a cornerstone of the authority’s housing ambitions.
Labour called-in the decision, taken by officers in consultation with the committee’s Green chairman and Conservative vice-chairman, arguing it was not taken in accordance with council rules, but an escalation panel rejected this by 4-3 with no further action deemed necessary..
Bristol Beacon
Eight months after its grand reopening in November 2023, a “lessons learned” report into the Bristol Beacon refurbishment found the project was potentially doomed as a cash calamity from the outset because no one was truly in charge until it was too late.
The probe, aimed at preventing similar mistakes for major capital schemes, was ordered by auditors Grant Thornton after they blamed the city council for the cost of the revamp almost tripling from an original £48million to £132million.
In 2022, the finance watchdogs concluded that the local authority “underestimated the complexity and difficulty” of the Victorian concert hall’s renovation and that it failed to have effective arrangements in place to stop the bill from spiralling.
Consultants Arcadis published their findings from the review in July 2024. The report said the council ignored problems flagged by contractors about the state of the building, creating a “them vs us” environment.
It said the risks of costs spiralling were not properly assessed from the beginning and there were no contingencies in place if more money was needed, while the complexity of various funding organisations and other interested parties meant the local authority lacked flexibility if changes were needed.
The consultants said the issues were not fully understood or addressed until the council established a project management office in January 2021 – almost three years after the organisation and other funders committed the original £48.8million budget.
Just two months later, once the extent of the Beacon’s “worst-case scenario” problems were realised, these rocketed to £107million, later to become £132million. The report said the project board “was not operating effectively during the early stages of the project” and that senior officers did not have the time or capacity to provide sufficient oversight.
The Bristol Beacon
(Image: reach)
Mass transit
Weca leaders approved £13million in September for the next steps towards creating a reliable mass transit system for the Bristol region. But a report to the committee revealed that the long-awaited plans would not even begin to happen on the ground until the 2030s.
Outline proposals for the project, called WEST Rapid Transport, will take three years to complete, followed by the same amount of time to finalise a full business case.
It means no actual work will take place before the end of the decade, regardless of whether it will be trams, dedicated bus lanes or anything else, now that an underground has been ruled out because of costs, a decision taken when Mr Norris vetoed the costly and “unrealistic” idea at the end of 2023.
New railway station
Ashley Down railway station reopened in September, 60 years after Ashley Hill, as it was then known, closed. It is the second station in the MetroWest programme to open after Portway park and ride began running services in 2023.
But not everyone was happy. Weeks later, cross-party Bristol councillors complained that trains should run more often than once an hour. More new stations are in the pipeline.
In September, revised plans for one at Henbury were submitted to South Gloucestershire Council, while the North Filton stop has planning permission but it has been delayed because the original submission needs redesigning.
These two stations, along with Ashley Down, would reopen the Henbury Line. North Filton, which would serve the new Brabazon neighbourhood and arena, is expected to open in 2026 and Henbury the following year.
Campaigners are optimistic that Charfield station in South Gloucestershire, which also has planning consent, will reopen. Hopes to reopen the Portishead Line, including new stations in the town centre and at Pill, were put in limbo when the new Labour government axed the Restoring Your Railway programme, which was needed to fund it.
In September, metro mayor Mr Norris said he was “quietly confident” the £152million project would go ahead by being chosen from a list of railway schemes around the country that were similarly at risk and under review.
The new Ashley Down railway station
(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
Allotment fees
Allotment rents in Bristol will increase next October but by less than originally proposed following a backlash. A campaign coordinated by plotholders convinced the council’s public health and communities policy committee to shrink the size of the rises.
Annual rent for a small plot size between 75 and 149 square metres, the most common type in Bristol, will go up from £50 to £66 without water and £76 with water, rather than the initial plan of £79 and £89 respectively. It will be the first increase in rents since 2018, with some of the extra income being used to hire a new allotment officer at the council.
Thousands of more homes for South Gloucestershire
New planning rules announced by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner in July will force an extra 6,000 new homes on South Gloucestershire. The “radical” changes to how many new residential properties the government thinks each local authority should be required to find land for were branded a “potential disaster” and an “attack on green spaces” by critics.
In the district it will mean a 30 per cent increase in house-building, from the current target of 1,317 to 1,717 every year over the next 15 years. For B&NES the new formula will more than double its annual new housing goal from 717 to 1,466 homes, while North Somerset will have to allocate land for an additional 20 per cent, from 1,324 to 1,587.
By contrast, Bristol City Council’s target, like many urban areas under the proposals, will fall by 10 per cent, from 3,378 to 3,057 a year. The reforms of the National Planning Policy Framework, which underpins the planning system, changes the method used to calculate how many homes should be built in each area across the country, with more houses added to existing targets depending on how much higher property prices are than earnings.
The government also announced that some existing protected greenbelt land deemed to be poor quality, such as disused petrol stations and car parks, would be redesignated “grey belt” to remove barriers to development. At the time of the announcement, the latest iteration of South Gloucestershire Council’s Local Plan had just been approved by the authority’s leaders, allocating 22,241 homes in the district from 2025 to 2040, almost 1,500 a year, which is short of the new figure set by Westminster.
It means some of the blueprint may have to go back to the drawing board so more sites can be found for housing.
Institutional disability discrimination
In July, Bristol City Council admitted “institutional discrimination” against disabled staff. Treatment of employees was criticised as “appalling” and “unacceptable”, while the local authority said it would take many years to put right.
Human resources chiefs said they were “embarrassed and ashamed” over advice given to managers for decades that reinforced bad practice on what should be “reasonable adjustments” for workers with disabilities to ensure they have everything they need to do their jobs.
The council said it was making “lasting and meaningful change” after joining forces with staff and campaigners who were at their “wits’ end” and raised the issue in 2023 with the chief executive who ordered directors to take urgent action. But the human resources committee was told in July 2024 that the organisation’s treatment of disabled employees was still in need of improvement.
Controversial bin collection changes
South Gloucestershire Council’s budget in February approved the doubling of green waste collection fees, along with the introduction of charges in its car parks, a move opposed by nearly 70 per cent of residents during a public consultation. The parking fees sparked a long-running dispute over who was responsible for bringing them in, with the Lib Dem/Labour cabinet blaming the former Conservative administration and vice versa.
Then in November, cabinet members agreed to reduce black bin collections from two to three weeks. Days later, Bristol City Council launched its own consultation into plans to cut collections of non-recyclable household waste to either three-weekly or four-weekly.