Frank Branston was the first elected Mayor of Bedford. He was first a journalist, then a newspaper owner and then a politician, ending up having to work closely with council members whom he had previously upset through the feisty pages of his Bedfordshire on Sunday free paper.
Frank Branston was born in Retford, Nottinghamshire, in 1939. He was brought up in London and educated at Sloane Grammar School, Chelsea. His career in journalism began at the Sunday Express where he distinguished himself when named “the most sarcastic office boy in Fleet Street”. His break as a reporter came on the Richmond and Twickenham Times where he first experienced the machinations of local government that were to become the lifeblood of his career. After stints with the Fleet Street News Agency and The People, Branston joined The Bedfordshire Times. As its investigative reporter, he found fertile material in questionable goings-on in the local council. He became the first weekly paper journalist to be named Provincial Journalist of the Year at the IPC National Press Awards in 1974.
In 1977 he launched Bedfordshire on Sunday with £9,000 capital and a £5,000 bank loan. Unlike most other free papers, news always came first. Branston’s philosophy was that with a strong editorial policy, advertising would follow. It did not come straightaway, however, although the paper gradually became popular with its campaigns against corruption and poorly managed public services, leading Branston to asssert that “Bedfordshire on Sunday proved that news, vigorous comment and humour are the saviour of newspapers, not their undertaker”.
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Branston was a no-nonsense proprietor, a lateral thinker, abrasive and impatient but determined to improve his locality. He sometimes pushed too hard. In 1999 members of Bedford Borough Council sued the paper for libel over accusations of incompetence. The matter could have been settled out of court, but Branston was determined to fight it. He won the first judgment but lost on appeal, incurring costs of £2 million. By the time he sold Local Sunday Newspapers Group to Iliffe News and Media in 2005, it had become a highly profitable concern with a group circulation of 350,000 a week and titles in Luton, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, North Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes.
After campaigning for the establishment of a mayoral system in his town, Branston accepted an invitation to stand as an independent candidate for the post in 2002. He won convincingly, a result which left him working with a chief executive, Shaun Field, who had successfully sued him for libel. Remarkably, the pair formed a strong relationship and oversaw the smooth introduction of a new unitary local authority.
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Branston was re-elected in 2007 and while the onset of recession has delayed the implementation of many of his schemes, his council outperformed most others in the Audit Commission’s comprehensive performance assessment on service provision.
Branston is survived by his wife, Marlies, and two daughters.
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Frank Branston, journalist, newspaper proprietor and Mayor of Bedford, was born on May 9, 1939. He died after an aortic dissection on August 14, 2009, aged 70