FSB urges next GM mayor to focus on region’s ‘failing’ transport network

Small business champ, the FSB, has called on the next Mayor of Greater Manchester to focus on fixing the region’s broken transport system.

Blackpool-based The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has published its own manifesto aimed at the Greater Manchester Metro Mayor elections, which take place on May 2, covering the 2024-2028 period.

The 37-page document identifies key challenges facing the region’s small business community over the course of the next mayoral term of office, and explores some of the policy interventions it believes are needed to support the City Region’s 125,000 small and micro businesses.

FSB Area Leader, Anne Lambelin, issued a rallying call to mayoral contenders, saying: “Much of our transport infrastructure is tired and failing.

“As a region it has held us back for far too long and is blunting our productivity.

“We need massive investment in all modes and forms of transport, and we need a loud voice at government level to unlock the money needed to make it happen.”

She added: “We need a mayor who will make sure the wholesale changes required are delivered as quickly as possible, in the areas that need investment most.

“Our city region’s success during the next four years will be largely based on having a strong, resilient, and healthy private sector.

“Our manifesto will, hopefully, provide some insight for the next mayor to help make Greater Manchester a more fertile and welcoming region for businesses, making Greater Manchester a beacon for commerce in the North.”

The manifesto’s underlying focus looks at how the next mayor can foster an increasingly business-friendly approach across Greater Manchester, while at the same time helping firms recover from the ongoing effects of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, and the impact of spiralling energy prices.

It covers a range of subjects important for businesses, including transport infrastructure, roads, congestion, education and skills, the Clean Air Zone, and devolution.

There’s a section devoted to businesses going green ‘sensibly’, and what help small firms will need to achieve their environmental aspirations in a period where climate change and net zero will be increasingly high profile.

There’s also a section on help for decimated high streets, with many retail businesses on the edge, and councils struggling to inject fresh life into town and district centres ravaged by COVID and dampened consumer demand.

Ms Lambelin said: “At its core our evidence-based manifesto is a roadmap to deliver jobs, growth and prosperity in our city region.

“The next mayor has some major challenges ahead, and whoever takes office in May will have the difficult job of steering our business community and our regional economy to calmer water, banishing the post-COVID malaise still affecting so many small firms.

“The next mayor will need to listen to all sections of the business community and work closely with local councils to get that trajectory right,” she said.