Underground commitment to arena abandonment: Key points from Marvin Rees’ City Address

We have broken down the address into four key talking points
Marvin Rees reflects on the council’s achievements in his State of the City Address. Marvin Rees reflects on the council’s achievements in his State of the City Address.
Marvin Rees reflects on the council’s achievements in his State of the City Address.

The mayor of Bristol has reflected on what the city council has achieved this year in his annual State of the City Address. While the city still faces huge challenges, from the climate to inflation, Marvin Rees said a lot of action had been “delivered” over the past 12 months.

In the first State of the City Address since the referendum in May, when Bristol voted to scrap the mayoral model, Mr Rees laid out a challenge for the city’s politicians to work together and “continue the momentum” he says his administration had begun to build in recent years.

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In his speech, Mr Rees spoke about the cost of living crisis, how inflation is impacting council budgets, and the work Bristol has already done to help those hit the hardest by rising costs. He also listed recent achievements, like securing £95 million from the government for a major regeneration project around Temple Meads train station, as well as building hundreds of new homes across Bristol, improving parks and installing new district heat networks.

A packed hall at the Wills Memorial Building also heard a new poem read by city poet Kat Lyons, and two speeches from Bristol’s youth mayors about their work. After the mayor’s address, a question-and-answer panel with two politicians from Nigeria and Toronto saw him discuss the challenges Bristol faces.

The full address can be found here but here are four key talking points.

Cost of Living

We will do our best to support the city through this national cost of living crisis. I don’t pretend we will be able to hold off all the hardship. But the work we have done over the last six years to build affordable homes, extend the real Living Wage and tackle hunger has been an investment in the individual and community resilience we will need. And the work we have done over the last six months with partners to set up a network of Welcoming Spaces in communities will offer immediate support.

Transport

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We have continued the work to build a mass transit system that will transform the way we move around the city region. The economic and geological assessment work has been done. We are about to commit a further £15 million with our neighbours to take this work to the next stage. Overground and underground networks are fast, efficient, low carbon transport systems.

They are essential for a modern, crowded city. Bristolians have waited long enough. There cannot be any U-turns, no shying away from the challenge of delivery for those who come next, be they Bristol councillors or the combined authority.

Housing

We have 472,000 residents. We currently have around 17,000 people on the housing waiting list, 1,000 families in temporary accommodation and the worst housing affordability ratio of all core cities.

We have started our own housing company, Goram Homes, building 268 homes in Romney House, Lockleaze. By giving Goram responsibility for housing delivery and social homes, we can build homes at a rate never before seen in Bristol — affordable house building is already at a 12-year high.

City centre arena

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When we came to office, we inherited the components of a plan to deliver a city centre arena. It would have 10,000 seats. An operator had been identified who was planning for mid-size events. We picked up that plan and we ran with it but began to discover the numbers were unravelling.

Projected costs rose from £79 million to £95 million to £135 million and climbing. We continued to drive for delivery but were clear we would deliver an arena the city could afford. We worked with two contractors as a result but the costs continued to spiralled. Ultimately, we were faced with borrowing over £160 million to build an arena with a 35 year break-even financial model with all the risk held by council taxpayers.

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