Mayor believes mass transit system is coming

A mayor has said that Bristol deserves a mass transit system and hopes within the next year more plans can be confirmed.

Helen Godwin, mayor for the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), made the statement talking with John Darvall on BBC Radio Bristol's Hot Seat, answering questions about public transport, water supplies, and whether she plans to become prime minister.

The government has indicated it will give metro mayors more powers, and North Somerset is due to join Weca, which covers Bristol, Yate and Bath, in the coming months.

Plans for some sort of mass transit system have captured headlines after Prime Minister Andy Burnham indicated he was in favour of the idea.

But what would it look like?

"What pops into my head is trams and light rail," said Godwin. But she suggests segregated bus lanes might be more likely.

"To do something quickly, which I think is what people want and deserve, we might be looking at bus-based mass transit," she said.

Whatever form it takes, it is likely to take some time. Within 12 months, Godwin said she hoped people will be able to "believe that mass transit is coming".

Asked about buses, Godwin indicated she is in favour of public control, but said she would not do it until she was sure it would not cost council tax payers lots of money.

She said she is "actively talking" to FirstBus about why reliability is poor on some routes, and gathering data to inform her decision about what happens next.

While franchising in Greater Manchester is seen as one of Burnham's successes, Godwin points out that Weca's bus network is in a much more rural areas, which creates a different challenge.

"Some of our routes were costing over £50 per passenger," she said.

"That is an extraordinary amount of money."

Godwin was also quizzed on where the water is going to come from for the 65,000 houses that are due to be built across the West of England in the next ten years, especially as the region is currently in a drought.

"We are working with government to look at that wider network of energy supply, which includes water," she said.

There is also the prospect of a new data centre in Avonmouth, which is currently going through the planning process. That decision is not directly in Godwin's remit, but she added, "we've got to think about how people experience growth and whether they can see a way that it benefits them".

"Data centres, we don't know how many jobs they create, is it enough jobs for the impact they have?" she added.

Could Godwin follow in Burnham's footsteps and become prime minister?

Godwin said she has no ambitions to take on the top role as she already has the "better job".

"This is much more hands-on. My passion for this place is deep within, it's not a political project. We haven't always put ourselves in the spaces that we need to be in, and we're trying to change that now.

"For me this is about making as much change as I can," Godwin said.

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