Mayor of Yorkshire could be elected in two years

Councils reach agreement on the path to devolution

YORKSHIRE COULD be set to elect a county-wide mayor by 2020 after the leaders of 18 of the region’s councils reached an agreement on devolution.

In a landmark intervention, elected leaders from every one of Yorkshire’s councils bar Rotherham and Sheffield have written to Prime Minister Theresa May urging her to commit to an election for a mayor for the whole region within two years.

Under the proposal, submitted ahead of a crunch meeting between Yorkshire leaders and Communities Secretary Sajid Javid today, the council leaders agree that planned elections for a mayor for South Yorkshire should go ahead first.

The South Yorkshire election has been scheduled for May despite Barnsley and Doncaster having previously withdrawn from a devolution agreement for the Sheffield City Region.

However, now both Steve Houghton, the leader of Barnsley Council, and Ros Jones, the mayor of Doncaster, along with 16 other council chiefs signed up to the so-called One Yorkshire movement, agree South Yorkshire “should benefit from its devolution deal first” with a twoyear mayoral term beginning after the planned May election.

Significantly, the letter from political leaders says this should in turn be followed by a “joint commitment” between the Government and local authorities in Yorkshire for an election in May 2020 “involving any councils who decide to join a Mayoral Combined Authority for the widest possible Yorkshire geography”.

The model echoes that proposed by Archbishop of York John Sentamu last year and leaves the door open for Sheffield and Rotherham to join the rest of the region in two years, as well as removing the need to overhaul the planned South Yorkshire election which is enshrined in law.

The letter has been sent to Mrs May, Chancellor Philip Hammond, Business Secretary Greg Clark and Mr Javid, who today prepares to hear from council leaders on their plans for a regional devolution. Members of the All Party Parliamentary Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Group, including all of the region’s council leaders, MPs, peers and businesses and religious leaders, will meet at the House of Commons this afternoon.

The letter states: “We believe that there are many benefits to be gained from this approach by Government and the people and businesses of Yorkshire and therefore negotiations about the deal should start without delay.”

It says that with the Government’s support, today’s meeting “can seal an historic agreement about devotion to benefit all of Yorkshire’s five million people by potentially doubling the size of our economy”.

The letter was also signed by leaders from Barnsley, Bradford, Calderdale, Doncaster, East Riding, Hull, Kirklees, Leeds, North Yorkshire, York, Craven, Hambleton, Richmond, Scarborough, Selby, Wakefield, Ryedale and Harrogate.

HIGH-SPEED RAIL linking the North of England’s biggest cities should be delivered at the same time as HS2, politicians and business leaders have urged today.

MPs, civic leaders and company bosses claim delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) at the same time as HS2 would be a major step to narrowing the NorthSouth divide, opening up much larger potential labour markets for businesses and enhanced leisure and social activities for families.

One leader has also said it could help heal the political disillusionment held by many Northern voters.

Issued under the Northern Powerhouse Partnership banner, the collective message claims that young people born last year would be able to explore further education and job opportunities throughout the UK from the improvements.

The political and business leaders also say international connectivity would also be transformed, with 10m people brought within two hours of Manchester Airport compared to three million today.

Dramatically cutting journey times to cities and towns would also create thousands of jobs, increase productivity and serve in attracting significant overseas investment, the document claims.

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s vice-chairman Lord Jim O’Neill said: “The financial investment justification for central government would vastly exceed the usual cautious valuefor-money criteria, and be one of the most exciting things for postBrexit Britain, notably for an area that has many disillusioned voters.”

The Northern Powerhouse All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meeting this afternoon will hear from Andy Burnham, the elected mayor of Greater Manchester, and Bradford Council’s leader, Coun Susan Hinchcliffe, about the transformational effects the proposed high-speed networks will have on their cities by connecting them to rest of the North.

It calculates that NPR would reduce journey times between Manchester and Bradford to just 20 minutes and would create 20,000 new jobs in Liverpool alone. Crucial to this improvement is the proposed tunnel to accommodate NPR in an underground station at Manchester Piccadilly, ensuring that HS2 trains can seamlessly link with NPR trains and link with Manchester Airport.

Mr Burnham said: “We need the Government to deliver East to West NPR alongside HS2, with a revamped Manchester Piccadilly station at its heart.”

The call is made after Transport for the North published an all-encompassing blueprint document for the North of England which laid out the benefit to the country as a whole were it to be handed infrastructure improvements.

As well as proposing the speeding-up of delivering NPR, it called for upgrading the Hope Valley line between Sheffield and Manchester and upgrading the existing lines from Hull.

Coun Hinchcliffe added: “Supporters of the Next Stop Bradford campaign have made the case for why a new line between Manchester and Leeds will have the greatest benefit if it includes a city-centre stop in Bradford. It is right that Bradford is now on the preferred route and that this route should be built sooner, rather than later.

“At least £1.3bn of additional economic benefits will come from a Bradford city-centre station and will be unlocked through the direct connections to Manchester in 20 minutes and Leeds in seven minutes.”

We need the Government to deliver East to West NPR alongside HS2. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.