Former Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees' company paid by firms who signed major contract while he was in office

As a Lord, Marvin Rees now has to declare his financial interests

05:00, 14 Apr 2025Updated 10:19, 14 Apr 2025

Pictured in June 2022, Ameresco chief executive George Sakellaris (left) and Bristol mayor Marvin Rees (right), after Bristol City Council signed a £1 billion deal with the US energy firm(Image: Bristol City Council)

The former Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees has revealed a company he set up has recently been paid by two organisations who had signed major contracts with Bristol City Council when he was in charge of the city.

Since leaving office in May 2024, Marvin Rees was enobled and is now Lord Rees of Easton, and now has to declare other income under parliamentary rules of registered interests.

The main company on Lord Rees’ list of Registered Interests is a company called Three and Two Ltd. The company was incorporated on April 19 2024 – less than two weeks before his last day in the role of mayor at City Hall in Bristol.

The company is registered at Companies House to a private address in South Gloucestershire and Lord Rees is listed as its only director.

Under the parliamentary list of Registered Interests, Lord Rees has described Three and Two Ltd as a ‘personal services company for the member’s consultancy work and public speaking’.

While he was mayor of Bristol and since he left office, Mr Rees has been a regular speaker at a range of conferences, events and festivals around Britain and further afield – particularly in the US – on subjects around the environment, race, class, international development, cities and leadership.

Lord Rees has added information on who the clients of Three and Two Ltd are – who has paid the company for speaking or consultancy fees.

They are listed as Ameresco, Cambridge Management Consulting, the Mayors Migration Council, the University of Pennsylvania, Empire Fighting Chance, and a think tank called the Overseas Development Institute.

Former Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees took his seat in the House of Lords, as Lord Rees of Easton, for the first time on Monday, February 24, 2025(Image: western daily press)

In an undated article on using technology to decarbonise the public sector, on Cambridge Management Consulting’s website, Lord Rees is named as someone who presented a Ted Talk on the role of cities, and was named as someone on the board of directors for Cambridge Management Consulting.

The company also lists Craig Cheney as a managing partner in public sector and education. Mr Cheney was a city councillor in Bristol until last year’s election, and was the finance chief in Mr Rees’ cabinet for many years.

The Mayors Migration Council, the Overseas Development Institute and the University of Pennsylvania have all hired Lord Rees through Three and Two Ltd as a public speaker or in a consultancy role since his term as mayor ended, but it is the inclusion of Empire Fighting Chance and Ameresco that have sparked comment, and an article in Private Eye.

Ameresco

When Lord Rees was mayor of Bristol, Bristol City Council entered into a public-private partnership deal with the US energy firm Ameresco and a company called Vattenfall, which is owned by the Swedish state, to create the Bristol City Leap project in 2022.

It was billed as a billion-pound project to decarbonise Bristol and its infrastructure, and the most visible part of this project so far has been the work to create and install a District Heat Network that will provide renewable and low-energy heating and hot water to a growing area of the city, from Old Market to Bedminster and the city centre.

Since he left office, Marvin Rees has carried out a public speaking engagement for Ameresco. Last year, the Bristol City Leap project was named as the winner of the 2024 Award of Distinction for Public-Private Collaboration in Cities, awarded by the Global Partnership, an initiative led by the World Economic Forum and UN Habitat.

In announcing the news of the award, Cambridge Management Consultancy named Lord Rees as one of CMC’s ‘board advisors‘.

Empire Fighting Chance

The Empire Boxing Club started a charity which went beyond boxing training to work with young people across Bristol, to mentor, train and support them, and has grown to become a leading organisation in the battle to keep young people out of trouble, away from knife crime and achieve positive things.

In March 2022, Bristol Live reported that Bristol City Council’s cabinet had approved a proposal to transfer land and a youth centre call The Mill in Easton under a Community Asset Transfer (CAT) Scheme to Empire Fighting Chance.

The transfer saw the charitable arm of the famous Bristol boxing gym take on the land and centre for a peppercorn rent. Empire Fighting Chance said the original Community Asset Transfer for the building and the land happened back in 2014, when George Ferguson was the Mayor of Bristol. A CAT scheme is a fairly common procedure conducted by council chiefs across the country, and in Bristol, particularly since the advent of austerity in 2010, which has seen community assets like public swimming pools, community centres and youth clubs transferred to charities or user groups so they can run them instead of the council potentially closing them down.

The Mill Youth Centre project developed into something slightly different – the project was a 999-year lease at a peppercorn rate and also involved a proposed development for 38 new affordable homes built there, along with a new indoor basketball court, and the existing gym expanded – with the new and improved facilities paid for by Sovereign Housing Association, which was building the new homes.

At the time, the mayor was criticised by some opposition councillors for not openly declaring he had an interest in Empire Fighting Chance – he has worked closely with the organisation for many years as a volunteer ambassador, and championed the work they do with young people in the east Bristol area.

In 2022, when still mayor, Mr Rees was one of a delegation of young people and community leaders who travelled to London to speak at a dinner event at the Savoy Hotel hosted by the October Club, a prestigious club of city financiers who raise funds and choose a charity each year.

Empire Fighting Chance told Bristol Live the October Club invited Empire and the dinner was organised by them, with the then Mayor of Bristol inivted to be a speaker at the dinner. At that dinner, it was announced that the October Club chose Empire Fighting Chance as its charitable cause for that year and donated £820,000 to the charity.

Since he left office in May 2024, Empire Fighting Chance has paid Lord Rees’ company Three and Two Limited as part of his work as an ambassador. Empire Fighting Chance has been working with an organisation called Peace in Our Cities, to foster closer links with similar projects in central America, to share successful strategies on tackling gang culture and supporting young people.

Empire Fighting Chance said the former Mayor of Bristol was invited to be involved in this after it was established to help with city governance work in the UK and internationally, as part of his role as an EFC ambassador

Bristol Live has contacted both Ameresco and Lord Rees about the relationship, and responses are awaited.

Former Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees’ company paid by firms who signed major contract while he was in office

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