Plymouth-born Olympic swimmer and sporting legend Sharron Davies MBE has backed the campaign for a directly elected Mayor saying the city needs someone who will put its people first.
On July 17, a referendum is taking place when Plymouth residents can vote on whether the city should be run by a directly elected leader.
At the moment the leader must be a councillor chosen by other councillors. But if the referendum is a success, people will be able to choose their leader directly from a wider range of candidates - who do not need to be political.
The leader would then be directly accountable to the people of Plymouth.
With less than 5 weeks until the referendum, the former athlete and TV presenter says she still considers Plymouth as home and is urging everyone to go out and vote. She said:
“I think it would be lovely for it to be a non-political position. Anything that’s dealing with society has a certain amount of politics in it, but what you want is someone to be there who doesn’t have an agenda.
“Someone who isn’t reporting back to Westminster in the same way, who doesn’t have an affiliation to or have to toe the line with regards to what Conservatives, or SNP, or Lib Dem or Labour is saying. You need someone who is literally putting the people of Plymouth first.
“It’s the fact that that person is answerable to the people of Plymouth and directly so which is good.”
Ms Davies, who was born in Devonport and grew up in Plymouth said the city has a lot to offer and vast potential that’s not being realised. She said:
“Plymouth has so much to offer, it has such a variation of things with the sea, with the university, with Dartmoor. People can now live so much further away from London and still do their job, there’s so much Plymouth has to offer. It’s always going to have that difficulty of being absolutely flattened after the War and so many very unexciting buildings that were thrown up and are all coming to the end of their life at the same time. And that’s a very unique challenge Plymouth has and it’s definitely something we need to put a bit of effort and time into to improve but obviously that’s expensive, so it’s how we do that.
“I don’t think there is any joined up thinking at the moment. There are so many ridiculous policies without the critical thinking when we need to critically think about our problems. If we do A, B and C what are the long term side effects of that, and we’re not doing that at the moment.
“I don’t have all the answers but I do think that Plymouth could benefit from someone who just puts Plymouth first. I think Plymouth is quite a unique city and has huge potential to develop in all sorts of ways. We’ve got academia, the coast, industry, commerce, arts and sports. There’s so much happening in Plymouth for us to build on.”
Last week the Mayor for Plymouth campaign released a new 82 page briefing report on the cost of introducing a Directly Elected Mayor in Plymouth, demonstrating that it would actually save Plymouth money, casting huge doubt on Council Leader Tudor Evans’ claim that a Mayor will cost the taxpayer £1.5 million a year.
The report includes data compiled by Freedom of Information requests submitted to existing councils who have taken on Directly Elected Mayors, which was then compared to Plymouth City Council’s own data to understand the costs and potential savings. The report states that the median average cost associated with having a Directly Elected Mayor in 2024/25 was £258,002.
Based on population, Plymouth could expect costs similar to cities like Leicester, Bedford and Doncaster – all of which are below this figure, and the report went on to identify £500,000 of annual savings a Plymouth Mayor could make in the local democratic process. The result would be a saving to Plymouth of £250,000 a year.
Also last week, Rebecca Smith Conservative MP for South West Devon, posed the question in Parliament whether the Government was intending to scrap city mayors. They replied quoting the wording of the White Paper that the Government intends to stop the Local Authority Devolution model in its mayoral form.
The Mayor for Plymouth campaign argues it has nothing to do with Plymouth choosing direct democracy - that is having a mayor elected by its citizens. They argue that this referendum does not concern the proposal of a Local Authority Devolution Model and that the Plymouth Knows Better campaign, heavily backed by councillors in the city, is clutching at straws, because of the terrible track record of the last 25 years of councillor-led Government, which is indefensible.
The Mayor for Plymouth campaign points out that not one of the existing city mayors are talking about their office being removed.
Ms Davies today said she hopes any Directly Elected Mayor would be someone who listens to the people of the city. She added:
“It has to be the right Mayor, someone who has got experience in life and in business, is approachable, understands people, will get out there and talk to people and will listen. Listening is really important, and actually listening to what the people actually want.
“A Mayor would have to be resilient, as you cannot please all the people all the time. There are an awful lot of people who are frustrated with politics and find the world we live in at the moment very frustrating. Your vote is really important and it’s important to listen to what a potential Mayor’s policies are.
“I still have a huge connection to Plymouth and still think of it as home. My advice to anybody is to do a bit of research and vote. It will affect you, it will affect your children and it will affect your parents.”
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