On his first day in office the new independent mayor of Bristol rebranded the Council House, scrapped a parking measure brought in only a few weeks ago and announced he would take his salary in the city's local currency. George Ferguson, who beat 14 candidates to become mayor, also revealed [that] the hole in the city council's budget was 32m - 4m greater than he had expected. Ferguson said he would work with anybody who could come up with a clever way of finding the savings needed without harming services. To applause, Ferguson said he wanted to move fast. He did not want to commission expensive surveys or report on initiatives. Let's just do it and see how it turns out," he said. Of his salary - currently 51,000, though the figure could change - Ferguson said he would take it in Bristol pounds, a currency introduced this year and proving a success. Thanking the voters for entrusting him with the "ultimate project", Ferguson said Bristol had a minor link to London but a more important link to the rest of the world. "We are a proud provincial city," he said. "We are pretty self-contained and we are independent." Ferguson completed his speech by asking everyone present to join him as he took the oath made by young men of Athens when they became citizens: "I shall not leave this city any less but rather greater than I found it."