The partnership that really helped to hit the jackpot

It still surprises me that one of the challenges here at the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is explaining that economic growth is just as important in rural areas as it is in our urban centres.

You need to keep the lights on and feed folk – it’s as simple as that, but I’m still out and about talking to people making sure our rural areas don’t get overlooked.

Securing a significant £122m infrastructure ‘Growth Deal’ a year ago from government came with quite some responsibility.

To most, our rural areas don’t look like centres of growth. Fortunately, times have changed.

Experiences, leisure time and a beautiful environment are increasingly important to people. Increasingly, many don’t have to go into fixed offices or factories, they can choose where to work.

Our area is known for its quality of life – one of the happiest places to live.

With our eyes fixed on our massive growth targets: helping create thousands more jobs, new homes and connecting students to business, much of our work is about convincing people to invest.

As a partnership between the public and private sectors, we leverage public funds with private sector investment.

It’s a great way to maximise resources.

Our board too, is a great mix – of extremely well regarded, highly skilled business and local authority people, bouncing ideas off each other and getting the best for our local economy and residents.

For me, now is an opportunity to reflect. None of us thought our area would pull off one of the largest private sector investments in the North, a deal about which I feel immensely proud.

York Potash, the £1.6bn mine, will help create a thousand direct jobs and add six per cent to our local economy. A much-needed rural boost, to complement our natural assets.

Deals like that don’t come along every day – it’s one that only a highly skilled team of strategic planners can set up.

Ours realised early on that the mine wouldn’t happen without the right infrastructure, which is how the extension to Whitby Business Park and its supply chain came about.

It perfectly demonstrates our work here at the LEP – creating the right conditions for growth.

On the back of these developments, for the nearby coast we have negotiated twice as many train services between York and Scarborough.