What is it about?
This chapter looks at what Labour mayors in three English urban areas have tried to deliver, and how they have done it. It focuses on Sadiq Khan in London, Marvin Rees in Bristol, and Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester. Each case is different: London is examined through air quality and the Ultra Low Emission Zone; Bristol through the One City approach; and Greater Manchester through bus reform and the Bee Network. The chapter asks whether these mayors are best understood as “place-based” leaders, as ideological politicians of the urban left, or as individual office-holders using the powers and opportunities available to them.
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Why is it important?
Mayors have become an increasingly visible part of English local governance, but they do not all have the same powers, geography, resources or institutional setting. This chapter is important because it shows that mayoral leadership is shaped by both place and politics. The cases show mayors trying to respond to major urban challenges: air pollution, inequality, inclusive growth, transport reform and democratic governance. At the same time, the chapter argues that individual agency matters. Mayors can use formal powers, networks, visibility and political capital to drive change, but they remain constrained by central government, local institutions, party politics and public opposition. The chapter therefore helps explain what urban left leadership looks like in practice, beyond manifesto promises or abstract debates about devolution.
Perspectives
I have long been interested in how local and urban leaders use the limited powers available to them to make change happen. This chapter matters to me because it explores mayoral leadership not as a simple story of heroic individuals or local context, but as a complex interaction between place, ideology, institutions and personal agency. The chapter also connects to a broader body of work on mayoral governance, place-based leadership and local democratic innovation. Across London, Bristol and Greater Manchester, we see mayors trying to turn political values into practical interventions: cleaner air, more inclusive city governance, and public control of buses. These are not just technical policy choices. They reveal how urban left leaders seek to use visibility, convening power and political mandate to reshape their cities and regions. For me, the wider value of the chapter lies in asking what mayoral leadership can realistically deliver in England’s uneven and centrally constrained system of local government. It also raises a bigger question: whether urban mayors are becoming important sites for progressive policy experimentation, or whether their ambitions remain limited by the institutional patchwork in which they operate.
Dr Thom C Oliver
University of the West of England
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This page is a summary of: What and where are urban left mayors delivering in England?, November 2025, Manchester University Press,
DOI: 10.7765/9781526187628.00014.
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