A campaign to scrap the role of Bristol Mayor is to launch this week ahead of the referendum next month.
Bristol will be going to the polls on Thursday, May 5, to decide whether to scrap the mayoral system after opposition councillors had a victory in City Hall in December 2021.
A majority of elected members of Bristol City Council backed a motion to hold a legally-binding second referendum to decide how the council should be run from 2024 onwards. The vote will take place 10 years after the first referendum, which created the post of Mayor of Bristol in 2012.
The referendum in May 2022 will offer Bristolians the choice of keeping an elected mayor or going back to the committee system of governance, which was in place prior to 2000. The leader and cabinet system was in place between 2000 and 2012, before George Ferguson became the city’s first directly elected mayor in November 2012.
Read more: Bristol's elected mayor system slammed as 'undemocratic' in survey
And a campaign will be launched tomorrow evening calling for the mayoral role to be scrapped. Mary Page, co-founder of the group It's Our City Bristol, said: "On May 5, 2022, the people of Bristol have a choice whether we want to continue running the council by one ruling mayor, or with a team of elected councillors.
"For those who support having a Bristol mayor, democracy seems to be about having an election once every four years, to pick one person to decide everything for us. It's an event where people turn up to vote, but then have no power for the next four years as the mayor can decide everything.
"Those involved with It’s Our City Bristol, want to scrap the role of Bristol Mayor. We want to put control in the hands of our local councillors and our communities. We see democracy as a partnership, because it’s our city, not just the Mayor’s.
"We think democracy is an everyday collaborative process, where we can participate to ensure our views are given a fair hearing. We want power to influence collective decisions made by councillors elected by all communities. We think that's a better way to create a common sense of ownership to take care of the city and our shared resources."
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Ms Page said that supporters of the mayor claim that handing all the decision-making power to one person "gets things done", but she claimed that a recent Bristol Civic Leadership report has shown that’s simply not what happened.
"Besides the more important question is, has what has been done been what most people in Bristol wanted?," she continued. "Good decision making is not about the quantity and speed of decisions made, it is about the quality of those decisions and whose views have been considered. The quality of decisions is likely to better reflect what the majority of people want, if those decisions are made collectively by local committees with the opportunity for public input from all communities and political spectrums of the city.
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"The coming referendum on 5th May will have at its heart the question, ‘How would you like Bristol City Council to be run?’ Ask yourself, do I prefer the kind of democracy and leadership which leaves power over all council decisions in the hands of one person, or would I prefer the kind where power and decision making is shared, and I can be involved if I choose to be?
"We believe that our directly elected councillors deserve a seat at the decision-making table. We want our local representatives to be able to have conversations together, because no decision about us should be made without us."
In recent weeks, we have been reporting on experts' opinions ahead of the Mayoral Referendum in May. An expert said that the referendum could be the start of the conversation, rather than the end, while another one said the mayoral model has likely led to a "real change" in the diversity of councillors in the city.
Another said the mayoral model has a "direct democratic accountability" as one of its benefits, with another one explaining what council leadership was like in the city prior to the elected mayor model being introduced.
It's Our City Bristol Campaign launch is on Friday 8th April , at 5.30pm - 7pm College Green
