“We are punching above our weight”
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, launched the Be the Business 2022 festival at Leeds Armouries on Thursday morning with the words “we are definitely punching above our weight”.
Brabin, who was elected last year, was detailing the diversity of the West Yorkshire economy which includes NHS Digital and one of Europe’s largest teaching hospitals as well as recently becoming home to a new Bank of England office, the UK Infrastructure Bank and winning the competition to attract Channel 4 in 2019.
The Mayor took the opportunity to highlight a number of the projects she is working on during her first term, including her Fair Work Charter which is out for consultation and designed to encourage fairer and more flexible working conditions, promoting greater wellbeing, diversity and social mobility.
She also highlighted the region’s creative industries, saying: “I believe our creative sector is the absolute flip side of the levelling up coin bringing regeneration skills, jobs and opportunities to our communities.”
She outined the investment which the Combined Authority is making in the sector, including £1.5m through its Creative Catalyst programme.
And Brabin talked about her £6m enterprise programme, which she said will be allocated 50% to women 20% to people of colour and those who define themselves as having a disability. “That’s what a Mayor can do, make change where we need to see it [and deliver] levelling up in our own community,” she said.
