It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, says the mayor
The mayor’s war with scrutiny didn’t begin at the press conference where he was condescending and patronising to local democracy reporter Alex Seabrook and when his publicly funded head of external communications questioned the right of that journalist to ask certain questions.
That was just the day when people outside Bristol began to notice it; even when the journalists in the room didn’t.
At last count, 313,000 people had viewed the video that I uploaded on 21 June 2022. They were in turns aghast at the attempt to censor a journalist and then at the mayor’s tone when he finally answered whether it would have been better to discuss climate change over Zoom.
Rees’s hostile attitude has been visible for all to see for years. But equally importantly, the reluctance and aggression towards being subject to scrutiny has been clear to journalists.
By January 2020, the arena had been cancelled and L&G were set to be provided with the land at Temple Island. There was to be no procurement (as L&G told Bristol City Council in an email released by FOI) but the city was to give them the land for 250 years while we guaranteed 40 years of office rents for the insurance company that holds trillions in assets.
For the arena project to be cancelled, however, quite a bit of work had to be done in the background. Freedom of Information requests revealed collaboration with Business West employees to make sure that planning could be achieved by YTL for their private arena in Filton and for L&G to be in a position to benefit from the Temple Island site. Bristol taxpayers also funded an ‘arena consultant’ at a cost of £239k a year to make sure planning was a achieved for both.
The report to authorise the next stage in the development was due to go to Growth and Regeneration Scrutiny on January 9 before it was signed off at Cabinet. The report didn’t become available until three weeks later.
The day after the report was published, Rees went onto Radio Bristol to talk about what was going on. If you click through on the Twitter thread below, you can see a commentary on the interview. I have included part of it in this article too.
"The level of rigour that's going on over the way this deal is crafted is there. This is a normal way of moving forward and getting business done," said the mayor.
“Will scrutiny have a chance to look over the plans?” asked the BBC presenter, Emma Britton.
"Scrutiny function in the council and the councillors have been poring over this site for three years [laughs] through the whole arena. They're…let's say.. let's be honest... part of the conversation over Bristol... we need to talk to politicians but let's talk to some city partners as well cos by definition if you talk to politicians you're just going to get the ping pong"
Emma: “But the whole principle of scrutiny is fundamental to democracy, isn't it?”
Rees: “It is, it is, but democracy is more than what happens in Bristol City Council, it's also about tackling poverty and looking at the criminal justice system and...forward(?)." [repeats 'the council pored over this site'] "it's been an exhaustive conversation"
NOTE: The report had just been released the previous day after being due three weeks previously.
Emma: “So they will have adequate amount of time to scrutinise the report that got released yesterday?”
Rees: “Yep. They've got the report now and they can pore through it. I'm sure people will be on your show.
“This is really important, scrutinising the report shouldn't just be a political game. It also needs to be done with genuine expertise. (Green book, Red book, KPMG; going through the hands of our* legal professionals and our finance professionals.” (*they had external legal advice)
"When you're dealing with a £300m+ development you have to have that element of professionalism in there and that's what this goes through. There's no way that deal can be done without that level of rigorous investigation."
Emma: "Paul Smith [housing cabinet member] said L&G were not worthy of going into business with because of their pitiful record on affordable housing. ... Why have you not explored other options, other developers? Why straight to L&G?"
Paul's criticism is 'a level of rigour' in cabinet. It's a good thing, says the mayor.
The report states it will cost £32m to get the site ready for development. Just like it has taken £6m to get Cattle Market Rd/Tavern ready. 'Another company could have done that'
The mayor replied to say that it would have taken too long, in essence.
Emma: If you don't get re-elected could the next mayor scrap these plans?
Rees: “I think it would be very bad for Bristol. It'd be more dawdling around because of political gaming and the traditional political ping pong for the last four years has really held the city back.
Anonymous people in quiet rooms in the council house not getting things done, and we...Bristol deserves development. We need to get we need to use our land wisely, we have a housing crisis. This brings homes, affordable homes. We're doing that in the face of a climate emergency; the population is growing. We've got to break out of this history of just not getting stuff built."
The mayor seemed to be suggesting that the public did not need to scrutinise what would happen with their money and land, which was being given away for more than our entire lifetimes. Consultants who profit from outsourced land and services would be the ones doing the scrutiny.
Note that it was KPMG who initially provided the report on which the Coalition government’s outsourcing plan was based on back in 2011. KPMG worked with that government.
On the night the report on Temple Island was released, citizen journalist Joe Lloyd discovered that the redactions had been done ineffectively and part of what had been hidden from journalists and the public, was revealed.
It was a local democracy reporter who wrote up the article the day after the mayor went on Radio Bristol.
The city council teamed up with Legal & General last summer to develop the derelict site formerly earmarked for an arena, and this week announced latest plans for 500 new homes, office blocks, a 350-room hotel and a conference centre.
The [redactions] reveal that the much-vaunted hotel and conference centre, which would be built in the second of two phases of the project, may not even happen.
A redacted part of the report says: “Phase two is not part of the initial land disposal and the proposed uses today of hotel/conference centre and residential uses can be changed if future prevailing market conditions or council aspirations alter and other uses are preferred.”
Other hidden parts of the report suggest that the £32m that the public are paying to clean the site for L&G might not be limited to that amount.
Either party can withdraw from the deal but if “L&G is unable to obtain reasonable planning (a matter outside of the council’s control), or the council decides not to progress the land disposal, it will be obliged to reimburse L&G reasonable costs incurred in pursuing planning.”
Note that L&G have already been provided with £2.5m of public funds for exploratory work before any contract has been signed.
The council is meant to be making a profit from rental from the office buildings on the site but a further redacted part suggests that any costs the council is responsible for could come from that rent, which would lower any benefit to the public.
The journalist who wrote the article on the report has been banned from attending further press conferences along with other LDRs.
This example of the L&G report and what had been hidden provides an interesting commentary on the value of scrutiny and why perhaps the mayor doesn’t seem to like it.