West of England mayor candidate: ‘Buses and housing are the priority this election’

In less than 100 days time, voters across the West of England region will be electing their third Regional Mayor,  following Dan Norris’ election to parliament in July after cheering the nation by unseating Jacob Rees-Mogg.

We don’t call ourselves the West of England. We’re the West Country, or Bristol, or Bath. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that it’s taken our Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) longer to impact on our consciousness, compared to some of our Northern cousins.

But now, we need to get it right. This government has already demonstrated an impressive commitment and determination for regional mayors  to be empowered to drive economic growth, improve public transport, and build some of the 1.5 million houses we so desperately need.

Our region is in a great position to support the government’s ambitions on growth, our economy is diverse and successful, we are highly skilled and innovative: supported by four incredible universities, an enviable access to nature, and thriving culture and hospitality scenes.

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People want to live, work, and learn here. And as me and my children will confirm – it’s a great place to grow up. We’re lucky to be from our part of the world.

But we have two key challenges.

We can’t get around easily enough and we don’t have enough homes. Both these facts threaten our ability to grow our economy.

We have the powers and funding to improve bus services

Tracy Brabin’s determined leadership in  West Yorkshire in getting Leeds and Bradford moving means that Bristol will soon be the largest European city without any mass transit option, outside of buses and trains.

Buses are the priority in this election, and thanks to the government’s focus we have the powers and increased funding to improve services across the region.

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Everyone in our cities, towns, villages and rural areas should be served by clean, reliable and efficient bus services. We need integrated ticketing across operators, joined-up timetables, and the end of ‘ghost buses’, which appear on timetables but not at the bus stops.

The opportunities here are boundless, but everyone should be able to access all that we have to offer. I want to work alongside local leaders to rapidly deliver improvements to our buses and  open more railway stations, all the while looking to the future and what more we must do to encourage greener ways to travel.

Housing costs are prohibitive

Housing in our region was given a boost last week by the announcement of further homes in Brabazon, a truly inspiring modern community in South Gloucestershire.

Yet housing costs in the West of England remain prohibitive for many people. We don’t just need to build, we need to build the right types of homes, in the right places, and offer the right tenures to enable our key workers, our families and our young people to live in the region they love and contribute to.

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Any housing delivery will need to depend on providing decent transport connections and social infrastructure to support new and existing communities, as well as providing the right environment for innovative and creative approaches to housing, especially when we consider the number of small sites we have at our disposal. Thinking differently will bring new solutions to old problems.

It’s challenging but it’s exciting, isn’t it? This is a real moment of opportunity for our fantastic region to reach its full potential.

The next few months are so important.. Together, we can  win and ensure that our great region continues to contribute to the growth and job creation we all need to see.

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