Labour council leader throws hat in the ring for Metro Mayor

"I’m standing for Mayor because every person in our region deserves the chance to thrive"

One of the leading figures in Bristol politics over the past few years has announced he is putting his name forward to be Labour ’s candidate at next year’s West of England metro mayor elections.

Cllr Tom Renhard, who represents the Horfield ward on Bristol City Council, was the cabinet member for housing for the last three years of Marvin Rees ’s Labour mayor administration, and is now Labour’s group leader at City Hall - albeit in effective opposition after the Greens almost won control in the local elections in May 2024.

Current Labour Metro Mayor Dan Norris has been told he can’t stand for a second term in May 2025, because he was elected as an MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, and new Labour rules mean politicians can’t have two jobs.

So there’s a vacancy for who will be the Labour candidate fighting to be the next Metro Mayor leading the West of England Combined Authority until 2029.

Labour Party members from Thornbury to Radstock and from Hartcliffe to Bath will all have a vote to pick their party’s candidate, in a process that will take the rest of October and three weeks into November.

Any Labour Party member can stand, and they will need to be nominated, then shortlisted, and then the successful shortlist will be put to a ballot of members between November 6 to November 20. It is a similar system to that which saw Damien Egan get the Labour candidacy to be the MP for the new Bristol constituency of Bristol North East, ahead of former Mayor Marvin Rees in the summer of 2023.

Mr Renhard has tried to step up his political career before - he made it onto the shortlist to be Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Gloucester in 2022, but missed out on that job in the end.

With the end of the mayoral system in Bristol, the West of England metro mayor is now unquestionably the most powerful individual position in the region, bringing together Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Bristol under the combined authority, with powers over key areas like transport, strategic planning and the economy.

“I’m standing for Mayor because every person in our region deserves the chance to thrive,” Cllr Renhard said. “Truly affordable homes, available for people locally, access to nature, the health services and transport we need alongside housing, new train stations, buses under public control and investment in communities and good jobs.

“We have talent across the region who have ideas to make people, places and nature thrive. Let’s empower, let’s join up our public transport system and let’s make sure everyone has the opportunity to access the skills, resources and good jobs needed to succeed,” he added.

Cllr Renhard is unlikely to face his former boss, Marvin Rees - the former mayor of Bristol recently ruled out a return to frontline politics and said he wouldn’t be seeking Labour’s nomination for the metro mayor candidate.

The May 2025 metro mayor election will be the third since the post was created back in 2016. The Conservatives won back then, but Labour triumphed in a Covid-delayed election in 2021. That election coincided with local council elections in Bristol - which boosted turn-out in the city, with more people voting in Bristol than in the two other areas, which helped Labour’s Dan Norris get elected.

Next time, there will be no local elections coinciding with the WECA vote, and with the Lib Dems resurgent in B&NES, Labour back in South Gloucestershire and the Greens in the ascendency in Bristol, it promises to be a fascinating four-way battle to be the Metro Mayor.

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