West of England Mayor: Dan Norris labels Tim Bowles 'invisible'

The newly-elected Mayor of the West of England must "catch up" and accused his predecessor of being "invisible".

Labour's Dan Norris, a Somerset MP from 1997 to 2010, said Conservative Tim Bowles had not been prominent enough.

Mr Norris polled 125,482 votes, beating Conservative businessman Samuel Williams by 40,093 votes.

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, who was re-elected to serve a three-year term, praised Mr Bowles, despite Mr Norris' criticism.

He said: "We had our frustrations with the combined authority but Tim's a very honourable person and I would say he's a person who you can shake hands with and you don't have to count your fingers. I really respected that with Tim."

Mr Norris added he would approach the government with "a steel fist in a velvet glove" in an effort to secure further funding.

Mr Norris told BBC Politics West: "I think the really important thing for us to do is to catch up because we all know that we had an invisible Tory metro mayor before.

"That's bad news for our region because our region was invisible too.

"When I look at the work that's happening in other parts of the country, we really need to do something about that."

Mr Norris, whose campaign was backed by Labour leader Keir Starmer on the campaign trail in March, added: "Our region needs some very important things, we deserve it and we've got to deliver on it."

He said some of his priorities over his four-year term would include launching a new public transport system, housing and the environment.