From Bristol 24-7 www.bristol247.com
The campaign for an elected mayor for Bristol has criticised the city’s major businesses for not doing more to support its battle.
Stephen Perry, the organiser of this lunchtime’s mayor debate on College Green told Bristol24-7 that firms now needed to back their words with action to avoid “sleepwalking” to a democratic “catastrophe”.
He said that the city’s businesses had failed to support the campaign, despite saying publicly they wanted the change to a directly elected mayor.
And ‘Yes’ campaigner Jaya Chakrabarti said: “There’s been real overconfidence from the business community that we are going to get a ‘Yes’ vote, when there is still everything at stake and the ‘No’ vote could win.
“If those really committed to change in our city want it to happen then they’ve got to do something about it. The ‘Yes’ campaign was originally built by people running small businesses and now we want to know where the bigger companies are. They’ve got to get out there and help. The fight is on.”
In a recent poll of its members, the Bristol branch of the Institute of Directors (IoD) found 88% would like an elected mayor.
The debate takes place at Bristol Speakers’ Corner, College Green, at 1pm today.
