What a legacy to leave behind...

These are makeshift stepping stones placed in the continually flooding M32 underpass by Lower Ashley Road. Image credit: B24/7.

Marvin Rees is the soon to be ex mayor of Bristol, as the role was voted to be abolished in a referendum held in the May of 2022. His influence over the affairs of Bristol and his legacy will be the subject of debate for some years to come. To put it bluntly, he has a reputation for bigging himself up. To put it even more bluntly, many people think he's a bullshit merchant. These are just a couple of the many things he has said over the years about his role as mayor:

“We are a city of contradictions. Among them is the way we combine being home to some of the nation’s leading talent, a thriving creative sector and a high number of business start ups — with a collective lack of self-belief that, when it’s full blown, turns into a debilitating cynicism.”

“You have to do the hard yards when you are making change. It could be revolutionary, it might be explosive and everyone sees it happen, but sometimes what you want to do is nudge a compass one degree, almost invisible, but in 10 years you are in a totally different place to where you would have been.”

We'll leave you to make your own judgements about his er, ahem...legacy... This is what we had to say when Rees was named as one of the finalists in the World Mayor Awards 2023: Seriously?! 3.11.23.

Then there are the basics which any competent council should be routinely getting right without any dramas. One being the state of the pavements. Rees has talked about Bristol being a 'world city', whatever the f**k that means. He always seems to be jetting off to conferences with other city leaders from across the road. While he's doing that, the infrastructure of Bristol is literally crumbling away before our eyes and beneath our feet: Are Bristol City Council and Sustrans taking the piss? 27.6.23.

At the end of the day, a departing mayor is going to be judged by the legacy of what they have (or have not) done. For many of the residents of Bristol, they make a judgement on how Bristol City Council is performing based on their day to day experience of living in and moving around the city. They'll also be making their judgement on how Rees has performed in his role base on those criteria. As you can see from the image at the top of this post and this article, this is where the legacy Rees has left falls flat on it's face: Makeshift stepping stones placed in continually flooded underpass - Ellie Pipe | B24/7 | 15.4.24.

One component of what Rees did during his term in office was to promote so called 'active travel'. Which in layperson's terms is walking and cycling. It should mean just that, not 'active' in the sense of going on an assault course just to traverse an underpass that is repeatedly allowed to flood because of the negligence of Bristol City Council: A war on movement? 23.4.23.

Then there's the so called 'active travel' option... It depends what you mean by 'active', doesn't it? When it comes to Bristol, as you can see from the above images, all too often 'active travel' means negotiating flooded pedestrian underpasses and trying to not trip over on broken and uneven pavements. Walking around Bristol involves a lot of 'active' in dealing with pretty rough terrain. If the likes of Marvin Rees and Dan Norris want us to walk around more, the least they can do is spend some money on making walking around the cities and towns in the region a less hazardous and more pleasant experience.

On a lighthearted note, albeit with more than a hint of gallows humour, with the stepping stones placed in the flooded underpass, it's good to see that the punk DIY ethos in Bristol hasn't been killed off by a sustained onslaught of gentrification and social cleansing. On a more serious note, the fact that in the 21^st century, residents have to resort to measures like this simply in order to navigate an underpass should be setting off alarm bells. When vital parts of a city's infrastructure crumble and fail, and the authorities supposedly in charge of maintaining and fixing it can't get their act together to do the basics of their job that would keep it functioning and in a decent state, you have to start asking some fundamental questions as to what the f**k is actually going on.

Which is a question we tried to make a start on addressing in this piece: Collapse, metaphorical and literal 4.9.23.

Here in the UK, it feels like we're living in a country where nothing really works properly any more and things are, literally falling apart. It feels like society has become so complex that no one has any real idea of how it all fits together, with the consequence being that we're increasingly being caught on the hop by physical and digital infrastructure failures. This is despite, as previously mentioned, there being relevant professionals who have anticipated problems and issued warnings, only to find they're being ignored.

As Rees flounces off to start the next stage of his career, and the new committee system of governance at Bristol City Council is set to start after the elections in May, if we're being totally honest, we're not that optimistic that issues such as repeatedly flooding underpasses are going to get sorted out quickly. There's too much in the way of institutional incompetence and inertia getting in the way of any meaningful solutions to the city's crumbling infrastructure. So, it looks as though there will definitely be a call for the resurgence of a punk DIY ethos across Bristol just to get things done!