Three Policy Priorities for Dan Norris

Last week, voters in the West of England elected Dan Norris as their metro mayor. Researcher Guilherme Rodrigues takes a closer look at what the mayor will have to do to raise public awareness of his role and support the city-region in its future growth.

Blog post published on 12 May 2021 by Guilherme Rodrigues

Last Thursday voters in the West of England elected Dan Norris from the Labour Party, with almost 60 per cent of the vote in the second round, as the city region’s second metro mayor. A poll from the Centre for Cities shows that the previous metro mayor, who did not run for a second term, struggled to raise his public profile – only 7 per cent of local voters were able to name him unprompted. Dan Norris therefore has to raise public awareness of his role, by establishing a reputation for solving problems, and acquiring the authority to negotiate with the central government.

In the next four years, the new metro mayor should therefore focus on improving housing affordability; cleaning up the air; and giving young people the necessary skills to prosper in the existing economy.

Build more homes to tackle housing affordability

The West of England has a successful economy and relatively high wages. However, economic growth has brings challenges as the region’s housing affordability has worsened in recent years.

The current situation is caused by a shortage of homes. The strong local labour market attracts high demand for housing from workers, but supply is not keeping up with demand. To tackle this problem, Dan Norris needs to ensure more homes are built, and reconnect local supply to local demand.

With limited brownfield land available in Bristol and a green belt that only allows new developments on the region’s far fringes — areas characterized by longer commutes and weak transport infrastructure — the metro mayor should call for a strategic review of the green belt land to meet ambitious housing targets. A strategic review across all the local authorities in the West of England would ensure that the most appropriate land with the best infrastructure would be developed and the rest protected, rather than being released piece-by-piece in an uncoordinated way.

By leading on this, Dan Norris strengthen his office and govern in the best interests of the West of England as a whole. Research by the Centre for Cities’ has shown it is possible to build 55,200 new climate-friendly homes at suburban densities, next to train stations with connections into Bristol city centre. These locations already have great infrastructure ready for new housing and will protect green space for new residents, while protecting National Parks, and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Clean up the air by reducing congestion and improving public transport

The existing poor air quality in the West of England’s urban centres is closely linked to car congestion and low levels of both public transport use and accessibility. To clean up the air, the metro mayor should closely work with the councils to set policies that discourage the unnecessary use of polluting private vehicles.

Both Bristol and Bath and North East Somerset councils recently announced the introduction of clean air zones. However, these strategies are expected to exempt a large proportion of vehicles: approximately 71 per cent of the vehicles in Bristol and all private cars in Bath, which will leave both the congestion and air quality challenges unsolved. The metro mayor should push for an inclusion for all private polluting vehicles under those schemes, which would disincentive car use. Strategies like the workplace parking levy and charging all vehicles to enter the city centres (congestion charge) have proven effective in Nottingham and London, respectively.

To promote public transport use and cross-subsidise it with vehicle-related charges and levies, it is necessary to build a new institutional framework in the city region, inspired by Transport for London. In the short-term, Dan Norris should follow Greater Manchester’s example and franchise the buses using powers granted to him in the Bus Services Act 2017; while it sets a long-term target to secure control over the MetroWest rail services and champion the inclusion of North Somerset in the combined authority.

Ensure that young people have the necessary skills to benefit from the existing economy

The West of England is relatively successful economy with lots of businesses providing high-skilled job opportunities. However, its pupils, especially in Bristol, underperform their peers nationally. In 2019, 59.9 per cent students got good GCSEs in Bristol local authority, below the national average of 64.9 per cent. Under these circumstances, young people cannot fully benefit from the existing job opportunities in the area. There are relatively few mayoral powers in this area, so the metro mayor needs to start building a strong reputation as a champion of learning and school improvement. By using his soft power, locally, the metro mayor must promote existing educational projects and ensure that young people benefit from well-paid employment opportunities.

The Children’s University and the Realising Talent pilot project are two examples of initiatives aiming to improve pupils’ skills, by promoting extracurricular activities and mentoring, respectively. The newly-elected metro mayor should closely monitor these schemes and consider following Sheffield City Region’s commitment to expand the Children’s University, particularly effective for pupils from deprived backgrounds, to the whole combined authority area. Moreover, the next step for the new metro mayor should be bringing together local stakeholders, such as education providers and local firms, and establish skills compacts. Such institutional arrangements would help connecting different stakeholders, increasing the opportunity to learn and share best practices. Therefore, it would help improving take-ups of existing programmes as the Kickstart scheme.