Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mayor: ‘Stepping down as mayor was not a decision I wanted to make’

Dr Nik Johnson says health issues played a big part in his difficult decision to step down as mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in May.

Since being elected to take charge of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) in 2021, Dr Johnson has undergone two open heart surgeries.

He said: “There’s no secret that halfway through my tenure as mayor I was under exceptional levels of pressure, brought about partly from doing a job I had to get used to, and had some real challenges of dealing with people within my own organisation.

“I was asked after I’d recovered from surgery why I was coming back, but I was very clear that I had to come back because I had a job to finish.

“There were issues within the organisation that I was determined to fix. Previously, I’d talked about the organisation being on life support, and I wasn’t the type of person or doctor to walk away from a challenge.”

Dr Johnson, who is also a paediatrician, has an irregularity in his heart called ventricular bigeminy, which means 20 per cent of his heartbeats are irregular.

The Labour mayor says his condition will only get worse and it is looking increasingly likely that he will need an ablation to treat it.

Dr Johnson also noticed he’d been getting very tired over the past six months.

Speaking about his decision to step down, he said: “It was tough and not necessarily a decision I wanted to make.

“It was a set of circumstances that were coming together all at once, but there was a moment of clarity when I saw the gap in the clouds from some stormy oversight. I thought ‘no, this is my time’.

“I made the announcement about bus franchising on the Friday which I’m so very proud of and it just felt it was a good day. I’d slept on it the night before. There was an element of bittersweet about it but I have no regrets.

“It was with great sadness but it was the right thing to do.”

Dr Johnson feels he would have won a second term if he stood for re-election and is confident that Labour’s new candidate will be elected in May.

He is now on the lookout for a new full-time job and is hoping to stay in the area.

“To some extent I’ve made myself intentionally unemployed. I want to work and I’d love to be the voice of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, but away from the politics,” he said.

Dr Johnson says Labour candidates are currently putting their names forward for the mayoral election and there are some “very good potential candidates, some of whom with huge experience working across the county already”.

He says that the party is planning to make a final decision on its new mayoral candidate by the end of the month.

When asked what advice he would give the next mayor, Dr Johnson said: “Approach it with humbleness and put compassion at the heart of everything you do.

“Being mayor is not being a typical politician. It is people first, place second, politics third.”

The Conservatives have named former Peterborough MP Paul Bristow as their candidate for the mayoral election, while the Liberal Democrats have chosen Lorna Dupré.