As UKREiiF staggered towards its final soggy waterfront drinks reception – after three days of networking breakfasts and presentations featuring suspiciously happy CGI cyclists – the North had started crowning its own.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week, at the Great North investment summit, Tracy Brabin introduced North East mayor Kim McGuinness as the \u201cQueen of the North\u201d, before the \u201cKing of the North\u201d – Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – took to the stage vowing to bring back power to the north.<\/p>\n
The regional devolution coronation naturally left one constitutional question hanging over Leeds Dock: what exactly did that make York and North Yorkshire mayor David Skaith?<\/p>\n
\u201cDuke of the Dales perhaps?\u201d I suggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll take that,\u201d he laughs. \u201cWe need to make this stick,\u201d he says to an astonished member of his comms team.<\/p>\n
While Burnham\u2019s role is more northern big-city monarch, Skaith\u2019s pitch is something else entirely: less imperial capital, more sprawling rural republic stitched together by market towns, farming, rail tech and people who still say hello in post offices.<\/p>\n
His patch, as he points out several times with the pride of a man still slightly awestruck by the geography of it all, is \u201cfive times bigger than London and three times bigger than Luxembourg\u201d.<\/p>\n
This year marked York and North Yorkshire\u2019s first official UKREiiF pavilion – a notable moment for a region still defining itself within England\u2019s increasingly crowded mayoral map.<\/p>\n
Across the three days, the pavilion hosted 10 separate events designed to sell the region as both an urban innovation hub and rural economic powerhouse.<\/p>\n
I meet Skaith at the end of a marathon three days and he remained impeccably presented – and well-polished for a man surviving conference coffee and panel discussions.<\/p>\n
Then again, he did spend a decade running York menswear store Winstons before entering politics. He was probably the only mayor at UKREiiF who looks entirely believable both announcing a regional investment strategy and quietly advising somebody on the correct trouser break for a brown loafer.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that is why I forgave his slight unfamiliarity with TheBusinessDesk.com – despite speaking at our Yorkshire Business Conference back in 2024. But then, two years is a very long time when you are running the largest ceremonial county in England.<\/p>\n
And it is that scale sits at the centre of almost everything he talks about.<\/p>\n
York brings the universities, life sciences, rail innovation, R&D and the enormous York Central opportunity. North Yorkshire brings the land, food production and manufacturing base.<\/p>\n
\u201cYork\u2019s real strength is the R&D, the spin-outs and the life sciences, and what\u2019s happening at York Central,\u201d he says. \u201cNorth Yorkshire is our land. That\u2019s our space.\u201d<\/p>\n
And economically, that space matters.<\/p>\n
York and North Yorkshire has the highest concentration of food manufacturers anywhere in the country, spanning giants like McCain, Nestl\u00e9 and Taylors alongside firms such as Heck. Agriculture, food production, health, creative industries and rail tech now sit at the heart of the region\u2019s 10-year growth strategy.<\/p>\n
The ambition behind it is sizeable.<\/p>\n
Under the Local Growth Plan, the region wants to increase GDP by 28% by 2035 – adding \u00a38.8bn to the UK economy – while boosting average earnings by a third, increasing productivity by 25% and getting another 20,000 people into work.<\/p>\n
For a region more associated nationally with market towns, farming and tourist postcards than aggressive economic targets, it represents a significant attempt to reposition York and North Yorkshire within the wider northern growth conversation.<\/p>\n
At UKREiiF, where every other conversation appears to involve CGI animation of a glass towers and mix-used development nobody can quite afford yet, Skaith\u2019s focus on food manufacturing and farming feels almost refreshingly tangible.<\/p>\n
And strategically, he may have a point.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one else is talking about agriculture, food and farming and rail innovation the way we are,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s our patch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skaith talks repeatedly about smaller businesses the 10, 20 and 30 people firms spread across industrial estates from Skipton to Thirsk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are flexible, agile businesses that can change really quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s our real unique opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
And on housing, the frustration is genuine.<\/p>\n
Some parts of York and North Yorkshire now see house prices reaching nearly ten times average salaries, while huge parts of the region remain constrained by green belt and national park protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless you\u2019re earning \u00a360,000 to \u00a370,000, you will not be able to afford to stay and live in our region, it\u2019s pushing younger workers out of the communities they grew up in.\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The combined authority wants 60,000 homes delivered over the next decade, with at least 40% affordable or social housing.<\/p>\n
Which sounds simple until it collides with Britain\u2019s planning system – a process where 400 homes can take a decade<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can say there\u2019s all the money in the world,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if planning is the thing blocking it, you\u2019ve got to speed that process up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The authority has already pushed \u00a3160m into housing, skills and high street projects and recently secured a \u00a3427m transport settlement over four years – figures Skaith repeatedly returns to as proof the mayoralty is moving beyond PowerPoint economics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not someone who says if you\u2019ve got a village of 20 houses, you\u2019ve got to put 1,000 next door,\u201d he says. \u201cBut those five to 10 homes can keep the school open, the shop open, the pub open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like most northern leaders, he worries about brain drain. York and North Yorkshire produce highly skilled young people through their universities and colleges, only to watch many leave for larger cities with cheaper housing and clearer career pathways.<\/p>\n
Around UKREiiF, that broader northern confidence is everywhere now. Investors who once treated northern England as a single interchangeable blob now discuss regions with the language of football rivalries. And Manchester still moves around UKREiiF with the confidence of somebody who\u2019s already expensed the afterparty.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, somewhere between infrastructure panels and coffee carts, the Duke of the Dales is making the case for a very different kind of northern powerhouse.<\/p>\n
Skaith is diplomatic when asked about Burnham\u2019s growing national profile but clearly admires his ability to force Westminster to pay attention to the North.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done great things for Greater Manchester,\u201d he says. \u201cBut more importantly, he\u2019s spoken up for the North in a way that probably hasn\u2019t happened for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for whether Burnham would make a good PM, Skaith smiles carefully – the expression of a man fully aware he is being asked to comment on Labour fan fiction halfway through a property conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want politicians who speak plainly and feel connected to the places they represent,\u201d he says diplomatically. \u201cAndy\u2019s obviously very good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skaith is obviously keen to emulate Burnham\u2019s success but has been shocked by the glacial pace of government decision making.<\/p>\n
In business, he says, decisions create immediate outcomes. In government, even relatively modest projects disappear into years of planning consultations, procurement processes and overlapping layers of approval.<\/p>\n
And nowhere illustrates that better than housing.<\/p>\n
One site outside York took a decade to secure consent for around 400 homes. York Central\u2019s planning documentation reportedly ran to around 17,000 pages. Somewhere in Britain there is presumably a planning officer still trying to print all of it.<\/p>\n
The irony, Skaith argues, is that investment itself is not necessarily the problem.<\/p>\n
Everyone, he says, \u00a0from pension funds to insurers are increasingly interested in affordable and social housing as a stable long-term investment.<\/p>\n
The challenge is creating projects at sufficient scale.<\/p>\n
Instead of asking investors to back a single development of eight or 10 homes, York and North Yorkshire is attempting to bundle smaller rural sites together into larger packages – 25 small developments becoming 250 homes.<\/p>\n
It is an attempt to translate the fragmented economics of rural housing into the language large investors understand.<\/p>\n
Again, it is not especially glamorous. Nobody at UKREiiF is building an immersive LED experience around \u201caggregated small-site affordable housing delivery\u201d.<\/p>\n
But it may ultimately matter far more to villages facing slow demographic collapse. Because for all the excitement around northern regeneration, much of North Yorkshire\u2019s challenge is not explosive growth.<\/p>\n
It is sustainability. Can younger people afford to stay? Can local employers recruit? Can villages keep schools open? Can market towns continue functioning as economic centres rather than slowly becoming picturesque retirement settlements with artisan bakeries and no workforce?<\/p>\n
Skaith repeatedly returns to community. Not in the vague sentimental way politicians sometimes do at conferences, but in the practical sense of how local economies function.<\/p>\n
North Yorkshire\u2019s business base is dominated by small and medium-sized firms – often family-owned, often deeply embedded within their towns.<\/p>\n
Those companies, he argues, have proved resilient after a decade of turmoil turmoil – Brexit. Covid. Energy shocks. Inflation. Supply-chain crises.<\/p>\n
And yet many businesses continue adapting. Partly because smaller firms tend to move faster. Partly because, in many places, local identity still carries genuine economic weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are incredibly proud of being from towns like Thirsk or from Skipton,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
That local pride forms an unusually large part of the region\u2019s economic argument.<\/p>\n
At UKREiiF, many cities sell themselves through scale, density and agglomeration economics. York and North Yorkshire instead increasingly pitches quality of life, specialist sectors and community resilience. Rail innovation. Agritech. Food production. Life sciences.<\/p>\n
Beneath endless panel discussions, UKREiiF reveal something real about modern regional politics.<\/p>\n
The North is no longer speaking quietly. And increasingly, regions are no longer trying to sell identical versions of themselves.<\/p>\n
Whether that ultimately proves enough is another question.<\/p>\n
And if David Skaith truly is the Duke of the Dales, he may end up governing one of the more economically interesting territories in the kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid the noise of big\u2011city regeneration pitches, York and North Yorkshire Mayor outlined strategy centred on housing delivery, productivity growth and long\u2011term sustainability of rural communities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271992,"featured_media":2140000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120784,1,9],"coauthors":[137100],"class_list":["post-2154778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-latest-news","category-property","tag-featured-story"],"yoast_head":"\n