In May 2017 Bristol and Bath will get a new Metro Mayor, who will have powers over transport, planning and skills to grow our economy. To discuss with the mayoral candidates their vision for how to support the world class tech, digital and creative cluster in Bristol & Bath, TechSPARK, the Engine Shed and Bristol Media organised a tech manifesto and hustings last week.
“This is the only mayoral hustings in the city region that offered Bristol & Bath’s leading tech business leaders to influence the candidates on future policies”
If you missed the event, you can see the whole Metro Mayor hustings hosted by Claire Reddington from The Watershed in the video below:
The mayors were also presented with a CreaTech Manifesto which was crowdsourced by the partners from leading tech, digital and creative companies to ensure the new Mayor knew our priorities for helping continue the cluster’s growth.
With input from many major tech and creative companies from the region, the manifesto outlines the key areas for concern from businesses in and around Bristol, and what actions we want the new mayor to undertake to support the continued growth of the cluster between now and 2020.
There was also a question and answer session where people put important questions and issues to the candidates.
As Ben Shorrock, TechSPARK’s managing director, explained, “According to the 2017 Tech Nation report, the Bristol & Bath digital tech cluster is the densest collection of tech businesses in the UK and with a turnover of £8.1bn it’s the highest outside London. This event offers the opportunity to influence the new mayor on why this is, and how they can help build on this success.”
Nick Sturge, Centre Director of the Engine Shed, added “This is the only mayoral hustings in the city that offered Bristol’s leading tech business leaders the chance to influence the candidates on future policies relating to the technology, digital and creative sector.”
You can read the CreaTech Manifesto for Bristol and Bath 2017 here.
