2025 West of England mayoral election

The 2025 West of England mayoral election was held on 1 May 2025 to elect the mayor of the West of England on the same day as other local elections across the country. It was the third election for the role and was won by Labour's Helen Godwin. For the first time, the mayor was elected using the first-past-the-post voting system.

The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) was created in 2017 as a statutory body which covers the local authority areas of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset.^[2][3] It broadly resembles the Avon county that existed from 1974 to 1996, but excludes North Somerset because that council opposed joining the combined authority, although they collaborate on some projects.^[4][5] In October 2020, there were discussions around North Somerset joining the WECA in time for the May 2021 election,^[6][7] but councillors in Bristol voted down this proposal in early 2021.^[8]

The mayor of the West of England is the directly elected head of the WECA.^[9] Under a devolution deal agreed in 2017, they have powers over an annual allocation from the government, to fund transport management, strategic planning of land and housing and adult education.^[5]

The first past the post system was used to elect the mayor; in this system the candidate with the most votes wins. Previous elections for the mayor had used the supplementary vote system. In 2024, the Electoral Reform Society described the change as lowering the bar for politicians and thus damaging British democracy.^[10]

A rule change approved at the Labour Party's annual conference in September 2024 had the effect that incumbent Labour Mayor Dan Norris would be ineligible to seek re-election. Under the new rule, an existing ban on councillors remaining in their local government roles if they are elected to the House of Commons is extended to other officeholders, including directly elected mayors. Norris had successfully stood for the newly created North East Somerset and Hanham parliamentary constituency in the July 2024 general election.^[11]

There were three candidates on the shortlist to become the Labour Party candidate:^[12][13]

• Nicola Beech, former councillor and cabinet member of Bristol City Council
• Helen Godwin, former councillor and cabinet member of Bristol City Council
• Tom Renhard, Bristol Labour group leader and Bristol City councillor

On 21 November 2024, the Labour Party announced that Helen Godwin had been selected as its candidate.^[14]

There were three candidates on the shortlist to become the Conservative Party candidate:

• Steve Smith, a former Lord Mayor and Bristol City Councillor^[15]
• Samuel Williams, the Conservative nominee for the 2021 West of England mayoral election (who was mistakenly identified as the nominee by Bristol Live prior to the selection meeting)^[16]
• Toby Savage, former Leader of South Gloucestershire Council

After a meeting on 9 November 2024, Conservative members selected Steve Smith as their candidate.^[15]

• Mary Page, 2024 Green Party candidate for Bristol North West^[17]

The Green Party originally announced that Heather Mack had been selected as its candidate on 20 November 2024.^[18] However, on 9 January 2025, Mack stepped down, and was replaced by Mary Page.^[19]

On 21 January 2025, the Liberal Democrats elected Bath and North East Somerset councillor Oli Henman as the party's candidate for the mayorship.^[20]

Ian Scott, a South Gloucestershire Labour councillor, announced he would stand as an independent candidate after he was not shortlisted for the Labour nomination. He had made a formal complaint, claiming age and sex discrimination, on the basis that only the three eldest candidates were removed in the shortlisting process. On 30 January 2025, the Labour Party announced it had expelled him from the party.^[21][22]

On 28 March 2025, Arron Banks was announced as the Reform UK candidate during the party's election launch.^[23]

The election was won by Helen Godwin, the Labour Party candidate, with 25% of the vote. The change in the tables below reflect the difference from the first round of votes in the 2021 election.

Thom Oliver, a lecturer in politics at the University of the West of England and part of the Bristol Civic Leadership project studying mayoral governance in the area, wrote that with turnout of about 30%, and the mayor winning with 25% of the vote, the mayor had won with just 7.5% of the electorate voting for her. He stated that "directly elected mayors derive their legitimacy from a clear and personal democratic mandate" giving them local authority for bold actions, and expressed concern whether the mayor had a good mandate.^[28]