The mayor of Bristol will face calls next week to halt controversial plans to transfer council staff to the West of England. Upcoming staff cuts at Bristol City Council could affect transport planners, engineers and architects who play a “vital role” in how the city develops.
Council chiefs are planning to transfer staff from the strategic transport team to the West of England combined authority, and disband the city design team. These plans were criticised last month from opposition councillors, trade unions, and a former Labour cabinet member.
Mayor Marvin Rees will be urged to pause these plans and provide more details, during a full council meeting on Tuesday, January 10. Green councillor Ed Plowden has put forward a motion, saying the plans could “severely affect” the council’s ability to make good decisions.
Read more: Plea for ‘smooth handover of power’ to committee system as staff cuts slammed
The motion said: “There is a climate emergency and Bristol needs to change rapidly to adapt to and mitigate the existential threats caused by climate chaos. The design of the city’s places and movement will play a critical part in this adaptation and mitigation.
“We have specialist officer expertise in the strategic city transport and city design teams that help the council make good decisions to redesign our future city. Outsourcing the delivery of some transport projects will actually cost more than keeping them in house.
“Restructuring the expertise of planners in city design and transport departments, without clear future arrangements, has the potential to severely affect the council’s ability to make informed and quality decisions — which will inevitably impact on regeneration plans such as Temple Quarter.”
Last month, the council’s financial advisers warned these plans would end up costing Bristol more money than they would save. This is because future transport projects might need to rely on hiring expensive private consultants, and abandoning ongoing projects could result in the council being forced to pay fees of more than £1.3 million.
Councillors will likely debate and vote on the motion at the full council meeting next week. Mr Rees previously said the council already relies on getting funding for major transport projects from the West of England, so “the work should sit with the powers and funding of the combined authority”.
