What’s It To Me?
My profile

Mayors and combined authorities

West of England

Councils in West of England working together on things that cross their borders, led by a mayor everyone in the area can vote for.

West of England Combined Authority (WECA) is a Mayoral Strategic Authority with the functions and funding associated with that tier.

The mayor

Helen Godwin Labour Party

Elected on 1 May 2025.

Source: Democracy Club, Mayor of West of England Combined Authority (CC BY 4.0), read 26 October 2026. This is who won the most recent mayoral election; if the post has changed hands since without an election, this page won’t know yet.

Next mayoral election: Democracy Club hasn’t listed it yet.

What the government says about the next election

The Mayor is elected on a 4 year term. The most recent election was held in May 2025 with the next election scheduled for 2029. This will be done by Supplementary Vote, as will further elections.

What it decides

The law gives every authority of this kind powers under these headings:

Headings as printed in the government’s Devolution Framework Explainer: Mayoral Strategic Authorities (Open Government Licence v3.0), which lists each power under them. Which of them this authority uses, and how, is in its own papers.

Do all combined authorities do the same things?

The specifics of the powers of MSAs vary from place to place but typically include aspects of transport, skills, housing, and local infrastructure investment, and in some cases spatial planning, policing, health and employment support.

Police

WECA’s geography does not align with the area’s police force boundaries. Therefore, WECA cannot take on Police and Crime Commissioner functions.

Fire and rescue

WECA’s geography does not align with the area’s Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA) boundaries. Therefore, WECA cannot become the FRA.

What’s different about how it is run

At the time of publication, we do not expect WECA to have any distinctive governance arrangements.

WECA will retain some different powers in relation to nursery schools and education.

Councils in its area

Its constituent councils are Bath and North East Somerset, City of Bristol, and South Gloucestershire.

Every council in its area:

From the ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to Combined Authority lookup (LAD25_CAUTH25_EN_LU) (Open Government Licence v3.0), read 26 October 2026.

Website
westofengland-ca.gov.uk (from mySociety)
Meetings and decisions
Committee (the link of that name on its home page, 26 October 2026)
Budget
Not yet read.
The mayor's page
Mayor (the link of that name on its home page, 26 October 2026)
The mayor on Democracy Club
Helen Godwin
Cite this page

Harvard style. Every figure on the page also names its original source, which is usually the better thing to cite.

Every authority page has the same sections in the same order. Sources: MHCLG, English devolution: Area factsheets (Open Government Licence v3.0); MHCLG, Devolution Framework Explainers (Open Government Licence v3.0); ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to Combined Authority lookup (LAD25_CAUTH25_EN_LU) (Open Government Licence v3.0); ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to County and Unitary Authority lookup (LAD25_CTYUA25_EW_LU_v2) (Open Government Licence v3.0); Democracy Club, EveryElection (CC BY 4.0); Democracy Club candidates (CC BY 4.0); mySociety, UK Local Authorities, with WhatDoTheyKnow home pages (CC BY 4.0 / CC BY-SA 4.0); Wikidata, official website (P856) (CC0). Parish and town councils are not covered yet. Corrections: hello@whatsittome.org.