Ceremony set to welcome Bath's 798th Mayor
Dr Bharat Pankhania is the first person of Indian heritage to take on the role
The new Mayor of Bath will take on the role this morning.
Dr Bharat Pankhania is set to be elected as the city's 798th Mayor in a historic ceremony in Bath Abbey.
He said: “I feel honoured. … This is a world heritage city which is putting its faith in me to say you are our representative.”
He will be the first person of Indian heritage to hold the ceremonial role, which dates back to the 12th century — but Dr Pankhania said he had been defined more by his background growing up working class in Leicester. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It’s a great accolade. I don’t want that to define me as: “Look at him, the first Indian Mayor of Bath.”
He said: “I’m defined by my background, rather than I happen to be an Indian.” He said: “I’m the Mayor of Bath and I made it through adversity.”
Dr Pankhania said: “A little boy in Leicester, son of a motor mechanic, I was brought up that I would also be a motor mechanic. And that was my lot in life. My school teacher had no hopes for me because we were all immigrant children and the plan was you have to come to school till you are 16 … and then good riddance to you.”
He said: “From my background, I’m not supposed to be educated. I’m not supposed to achieve anything. I’m not supposed to go to college, becoming a doctor.”
But that was what he did. As a senior consultant in communicable disease control, Dr Pankhania is an expert in infectious diseases and was a key voice during the Covid pandemic. He has been a Liberal Democrat councillor for Combe Down on Bath and North East Somerset Council since 2019, and was the city’s deputy mayor in 2023.
He married his wife Alison Pankhania — who will become Mayoress alongside him — “in absolute defiance of both sets of parents” in 2001. He said: “I’m anything but a compliant Indian.”
He said: “What has liberated me is I became educated — and education has empowered me.”
Now he wants to make “empowerment by education” the focus of his time as Mayor of Bath, getting universities and colleges to work together to encourage young people to consider further education. Although Bath is a wealthy city, he said there was a “significant minority” for whom that was not the case. He said: “It’s about taking the young person from a family where young people don’t go to further education and empowering them with what further education brings.”
Ian Halsall, who was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Oldfield Park in 2023, will be Deputy Mayor of Bath. His husband James Fox will become Deputy Mayor’s Consort. They will be elected in the annual meeting of the city’s charter trustees (the Bath and North East Somerset councillors who represent wards in the city) held in Bath Abbey at 11am.
A civic procession made up of the city sword-bearer, mace-bearers, current Mayor of Bath Michelle O’Doherty, dignitaries, visiting mayors, and the Bath’s charter trustees and honorary aldermen in ceremonial robes will depart the Guildhall for the Abbey at approximately 10.45. The procession will be led by the 93 (City of Bath) Squadron RAF Marching Band and the Avon Fire and Rescue Service Ceremonial Drill Squad will form a guard of honour.
Traffic will be stopped for a short time by stewards at the pedestrian crossing near Bath Abbey to allow the procession to make its way down the High Street, Cheap Street into Farr’s Passage and the Abbey Church Yard, and again on its return. It will return to the Guildhall at approximately 12.15pm.
Citizens and visitors are welcome to attend the ceremony, and are asked to be seated in Bath Abbey by 10.40 am. During a short interval, when civic robes and the collars and badges of office are exchanged, Bath Philharmonia and Harmony Rising choir will perform.