Mayoral candidates talk transport, 90 day plans and new initatives

All six of the candidates to be the new South Yorkshire mayor answered questions on Friday afternoon ahead of the election on 5 May.

They spoke at the South Yorkshire Mayoral Hustings event, which was delivered in in association with business organisations the CBI, FSB, Doncaster Chamber, Sheffield Chamber, and Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber alongside media partner TheBusinessDesk.com

Candidates from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Yorkshire and SDP parties outlined their positions on key topics including the green industrial revolution.

Hosted by Alex Turner, joint managing director of TheBusinessDesk.com at the UTC Doncaster, the candidates shared their views on what should be the priority for the region as it enters its second term of devolved powers.

Opening the session, Bex Whymen of the Green Party noted that while she was new to the political space, her ambition is to be the “critical friend”, to support businesses and the region’s economic prospects.

Whymen said her experience as a business and product analyst means she’s focused on making the region agile, to ensure it can move quickly to respond to challenges and opportunities. She said it is these approaches which she wants to work on over the next mayoral term.

Next, the current bookies favourite for the job, Labour’s Oliver Coppard, took the opportunity to say that as a proud South Yorkshire resident he was sick and tired of the region “being left out and left behind”. However, he was quick to highlight that this wasn’t just about a lack of support and investment from central government but also about “what we do here.”

He explained he feels that South Yorkshire is a region that needs “ambition” and that is what he wants to bring out if elected metro mayor.

Coppard was followed by his closest competitor in the polls, the Yorkshire Party’s Simon Biltcliffe.

Like many within his party who have canvassed for votes at other mayoral, local and national elections Biltcliffe highlighted the opportunity which is open to Yorkshire and briefly mentioned his hope for a “One Yorkshire devolution deal” – an idea which given the latest Levelling Up discussions coming from London seems as far away as it has ever been.

When asked about his priorities in the first 90 days if he were elected, Biltcliffe said he believes there are two things to look at straight away. The first he described as a marketing challenge, to advertise the region to those who don’t know about it as a place to live, work and holiday.

The businessman from Barnsley also explained a concept mentioned in his manifesto regarding twinning the regions.

“The Oxfordshire LEP has agreed to twin with South Yorkshire for expansion” he explained, noting that Oxfordshire offers a number of challenges for business looking to expand there. He said through his initiative there would be a matching service to connect businesses to allow them to link up on projects and make the region the easiest place “in the country to relocate or to expand into.”

Watkinson, the Conservative candidate to replace Dan Jarvis, who chose not to contest his seat in this election, explained his key idea for the role would be to help “navigate people through the bananas”, which he described as form filling and the creation of a new “jobs hub”.

The hub he described would house “every single job” and allow candidates to apply for it in order to solve the trick he believes the region is missing when it comes to employment. He said he believes candidates don’t know where to go to find a job and that through the hub they can match the right people for the right jobs.

One area most candidates seemed aligned on was the environment and the opportunities it provides through the likes of businesses like ITM Power. However, SDP candidate David Bettney a former member of the Army and entrepreneur with a background in business in the Middle East, said his focus would be on brining manufacturing back to the region albeit with a bit of – as he put it – “controversial” opinion.

“I don’t agree with anyone’s claims for the timing of net zero. I would say you manage that [shift to net zero] by 2050/2060, you bring in first nuclear and then you bring in all of the other systems of energy after that. If not you will have an energy deficit.”

He added that if you want businesses to be able to succeed and compete globally you need to “have a grown up conversation about energy”. He spoke in favour of shale gas and noted that only when energy was sorted could you deliver the economic growth the region needs and deserves.

As the conversation continued, all the candidates talked about making a difference in transport.

Biltcliffe said he believes the region needs to make a quantum difference by investing in the right sorts of transport, highlighting the options available in London from hydrogen and electric busses through to options such as Citymapper – a piece of tech enabled transport found in other key cities but not as of yet in Yorkshire.

Some of the candidates cited solving the issue of buses – a topic which has had mayors on both sides of the Pennines looking for a solution over recent years. Liberal democrat candidate Joe Otten, a councillor in Sheffield, explained that the buses had to be any mayor’s “number one single priority.”

He said: “The reason [buses are the number one priority] is because A the network is not good enough, it’s not a means of transport you would choose if you have any choice. And the second reason is it’s actually something that the mayor has the power to do something about.”

Otten added that in reality the mayor needs to look at broader topics such as skills, housing and business support but it was important to remember that although the mayor will be able to influence these, he or she has no “single power with which you can transform” those areas.

Following other candidates in sharing his 90 day plan, Coppard quoted Mike Tyson saying: “everyone has a plan till they get hit in the face”.

But looking at priorities and away from businesses, he said the Combined Authority may need to “reset” some of the relationships it has with key stakeholders including businesses. Also, perhaps playing to the audience, Coppard did cite one of the jobs top of his list would be fighting for GB Rail to come to Doncaster.

As the conversation continued, it was clear that all the candidates were passionate about the opportunity to be mayor. As Beckie Hart, Yorkshire & the Humber regional director at the CBI described it, “There were some similar views and some divergent views, so certainly a lot for the business community to think about.”

Hart closed the proceedings by noting that whoever the next South Yorkshire mayor is, it’s crucial they are “absolutely relentless with their engagement with central government and really try to ensure they create the tailwinds to ensure businesses are able to continue to invest and grow.”