Last time we had Helen Godwin on Bristol Unpacked, in 2020, she was a Southmead councillor and recently defeated Labour contender for the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) mayoral election.
The man who defeated her, Dan Norris, won the 2021 election. But his time in office was marred by a series of arguments with other regional leaders, then by his trying to do the role at the same time as being an MP and, finally, by his shocking arrest this spring on suspicion of sex offences.
With Helen having finally won both Labour’s candidacy – and then the overall election on 1 May this year – she’s come into power with a lot to prove, especially since we now also have a Labour government keen to advance a devolution agenda.
But as Helen mentions early on in the chat, public awareness of the WECA mayor role is far below that of peers in other regions. In particular, ‘King of the North’ Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, has embraced his regional identity to become one of the UK’s most popular politicians – and one of the most powerful outside of Westminster.
So can Helen, who knows Burnham well – as well as peers such as London’s Sadiq Khan, Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram and West Yorkshire’s Tracy Brabin – put the West of England on the map in a way that her predecessors couldn’t?
How is she – as someone who has always styled herself as a different, collaborative kind of leader – working with fellow leaders and with WECA employees? What kind of culture is she trying to put in place at an authority only recently out of government ‘special measures’, and found to have breached rules over hiring consultants? And most importantly can she meet her promises around making an impact, by becoming the woman who starts to properly fix our woeful public transport system?
We’ll be taking a short season break for a month or so after this episode. But in the meantime, enjoy Neil Maggs in conversation with Helen Godwin – and the rest of your summer also.
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An ‘out-reach’ across Somersetshire! ‘What’s in the tree, comes out in the branch’ pace former Southville Councillor, Helen Godwin; an ‘inheritor’ of Alderman ‘Jack’ Llewelyn, sometime Ward Member/Chairman the Library Committee, plaque so ‘dedicated’ exterior Bristol Central Library.
Dedicated to ‘secondary-education’ a railway man to boot, a comradeship this ‘octogenarian’ never witnessed subsequently.