Geoffrey Richard Gollop, OBE (born 23 February 1955)"City and County of Bristol: The Lord Mayor of Bristol 2011 – 2012"
. Bristol City Council. Retrieved 11 May 2014. is a British Conservative politician, the deputy mayor of Bristol, the former

lord mayor of Bristol The position of Lord Mayor of Bristol was conferred on the city in June 1899 (effective 15 November 1899) as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours and was confirmed by letters patent dated 1 April 1974. Prior to November 1899 the position of M ...

, and the former deputy lord mayor of Bristol. He was the Conservative candidate for the first directly elected

mayor of Bristol The Mayor of Bristol is the head of government of Bristol and the chief executive of the Bristol City Council. The mayor is a directly elected politician who, along with the 70 members of Bristol City Council, is responsible for the strategic ...

in 2012.

Personal life

Gollop was born at Bristol Maternity Hospital and has lived his entire life in Bristol, having been brought up in

Henbury Henbury is a suburb of Bristol, England, approximately north west of the city centre. It was formerly a village in Gloucestershire and is now bordered by Westbury-on-Trym to the south; Brentry to the east and the Blaise Castle Estate, Blaise Ha ...

, where he attended Blaise Primary School. He then attended

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

College, and after that went up to

Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Fitzwilliam College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college traces its origins back to 1869 and the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer academically excellent students of all ...

. Thereafter he trained in accounting, became a Chartered Accountant and worked in accounting firms, before being made redundant and setting up his own business. Geoff Gollop & Co merged with accounting firm Milsted Langdon in 2013, with Gollop joining the latter as a director. Gollop is married to Bernice and has two children, Mark and Hermione. He is a Methodist and supports

Bristol Rovers F.C. Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been ...

and

Bristol City F.C. Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

"PROFILE: Geoff Gollop – "I'll be a safe pair of hands""
''

Bristol Post The ''Bristol Post'' is a city/regional five-day-a-week (formerly appearing six days per week) newspaper covering news in the city of Bristol, including stories from the whole of Greater Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It was ...

''. 31 October 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2014. His other interests include musical theatre and travel. He joined the Conservative Party in 1973. He is a former

school governor In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, school governors are the overseers of a school. In state schools, they have three main functions: *Giving the school a clear vision, ethos and strategic direction *Holding the headteacher to account for the ...

Henbury School Blaise High School (formerly Henbury School) is an 11–18 mixed, secondary school and sixth form with academy status in Henbury, Bristol, England. It was formerly a community school that was established in 1956 and converted to an academy ...

and

Henleaze Henleaze is a northern suburb of the city of Bristol in South West England. It is an almost entirely residential inter-war development, with Edwardian streets on its southern fringes. Its main neighbours are Westbury on Trym, Horfield, Bishop ...

Junior School A Junior school is a type of school which provides primary education to children, often in the age range from 8 and 13, following attendance at Infant school which covers the age range 5–7. (As both Infant and Junior schools are giving Primary E ...

, and a former

church warden A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion or Catholic Church, usually working as a part-time volunteer. In the Anglican tradition, holders of these positions are ''ex officio'' members of the parish b ...

of St Mary's Church, Henbury. In November 2011, Gollop was the victim of an arson attack on his car, for which the

Informal Anarchist Federation Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) (in Italian: ''Federazione Anarchica Informale'') is an insurrectionary anarchist organization. It has been described by Italian intelligence sources as a "horizontal" structure of various anarchist groups, ...

claimed responsibility.

Political career

Gollop was inspired to enter

local politics Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

by the issue of secondary education and by his father Philip, a former

Councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

for the Henbury

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

, and he has been a Conservative Councillor on

Bristol City Council Bristol City Council is the local authority of Bristol, England. The council is a unitary authority, and is unusual in the United Kingdom in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Bristol. Bristol has 34 wards ...

since June 2001, representing the

Westbury-on-Trym Westbury on Trym is a suburb and council ward in the north of the City of Bristol, near the suburbs of Stoke Bishop, Westbury Park, Henleaze, Southmead and Henbury, in the southwest of England. With a village atmosphere, the place is partly ...

ward."Bristol City Council Election Results for 7 Jun 2001"
Bristol City Council. Retrieved 11 May 2014. In 2011, Gollop was appointed the lord mayor of Bristol, and in 2012 he was appointed the deputy lord mayor of Bristol. On 7 August 2012, he was selected to be the Conservative candidate for the first directly elected mayor of Bristol, having defeated former three-time lord mayor and Bristol City Council's Conservative group leader, Peter Abraham, and former councillor, Barbara Lewis. Receiving support from the

mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

, Gollop campaigned on transport, education, inequality and Council culture. His specific

policies Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...

included a freeze or reduction in

Council Tax Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge The Community C ...

, lower

fare A fare is the fee paid by a passenger for use of a public transport system: rail, bus, taxi, etc. In the case of air transport, the term airfare is often used. Fare structure is the system set up to determine how much is to be paid by various pa ...

s on public transport, and

business rates Rates are a tax on property in the United Kingdom used to fund local government. Business rates are collected throughout the United Kingdom. Domestic rates are collected in Northern Ireland and were collected in England and Wales before 1990 and i ...

relief for independent shops. In the election on 15 November, Gollop lost to

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

candidate George Ferguson, coming third, with 9.13% of the

first-preference votes In certain ranked-voting systems, a first-preference vote (or first preference, 1st preference, or primary vote) is the individual voter's first choice amongst (possibly) many. In certain ranked systems such as Instant-Runoff Voting or Single T ...

, behind Ferguson and the Labour Party candidate Marvin Rees. Gollop attributed the result to "a real disillusionment with

party politics A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

". After the election, Mayor Ferguson appointed Gollop as the deputy mayor of Bristol, and as the cabinet member with responsibility for finance and

corporate services Corporate services or business services are activities which combine or consolidate certain enterprise-wide needed support services, provided based on specialized knowledge, best practices, and technology to serve internal (and sometimes external) ...

."The Cabinet – who's involved and how it works"
. Bristol City Council. 23 December 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gollop, Geoff 1955 births Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge Conservative Party (UK) councillors Councillors in Bristol English accountants Businesspeople from Bristol English Methodists Living people Mayors of Bristol Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Clifton College School governors Survivors of terrorist attacks