The new Prime Minister needs to show she's serious about levelling up by backing Doncaster Sheffield Airport - Dan Fell, Louisa Harrison-Walker and Martin McKervey

Despite the near silence on the northern economy, we all know that there is an urgent need to address the UK’s stark regional inequalities. As things stand, output per hour in South Yorkshire is only 77 per cent of the national average. For context, if this gap were closed, our regional economy would be a staggering £7.2bn bigger.

To fully take advantage of the opportunities of the future, levelling up needs ambitious and long-term thinking. It will also demand hugely significant investment in the skills, infrastructure, and institutions that are required to support our most promising economic clusters. It is also incumbent upon us in South Yorkshire to protect and nurture existing assets and opportunities that are hardwired into our Strategic Economic Plan.

In South Yorkshire, our businesses are facing two imminent threats that can be mitigated by national-level action. Firstly, we have the fast-developing crises of skyrocketing energy bills and the cost of doing business, which will only make levelling up harder.

Recent interventions by the new Government are welcome but there may yet be a need for further targeted interventions to ensure our region is not inadvertently levelled down by global events.

Secondly, the potential closure of Doncaster Sheffield Airport would be another hammer blow for the region. Businesses have made it clear to us that a strong and credible city region needs a strong regional airport. For almost two decades, DSA has been at the heart of our economic strategies as a catalyst for growth within a framework of environmentally sustainable development.

To achieve our full potential South Yorkshire needs first-class global connectivity for passengers and freight flowing into and out of our region. Were this international connectivity to be lost — after the changes to HS2, the closure of Sheffield City Airport and the loss of rail services to Manchester Airport — the attractiveness of South Yorkshire to international investors would surely be reduced. This is unacceptable.

The closure of the airport would also see a green revolution slip through our fingers. Despite the climate crisis, humans will not stop travelling internationally or moving goods around the world. South Yorkshire can be at the forefront of efforts to create a low-carbon aviation industry. Doncaster Sheffield Airport has the credentials required to become a global focal point for zero carbon aviation through the combination of our regional expertise in new light-weight materials and advanced manufacturing.

We believe that commercial, private sector leadership is the best way to develop new and sustainable revenue streams for the airport. That said, we also believe that the public sector has a role to play in this complex situation by bringing key partners together and working with the private sector to develop innovative solutions that fit with the region’s long term economic strategy.

As leaders of major business networks in South Yorkshire, we applaud the recent moves by Mayor Oliver Coppard and Mayor Ros Jones to approach private investors directly, so that options for maintaining the DSA site as a full-service airport can be explored. We are therefore delighted at the breaking news that there is market interest in acquiring DSA.

We were also heartened to hear our new Prime Minister acknowledge the importance of DSA at the dispatch box in her first PMQs. We are now calling on the new PM and government to follow up on that commitment and work collaboratively with our local and regional leaders to explore all options to keep DSA open. A firm commitment from the new PM and her new Transport Secretary to do this will demonstrate that both regional and national government are serious about retaining this exceptional economic asset. It will also boost the confidence of any potential investors into the airport, at a time when the aviation sector globally is temporarily supressed.

Early commitments from our new PM to support businesses in relation to energy and South Yorkshire in relation to DSA are welcome and show that there is some scope for optimism about levelling up. However, the business community wants to see more than warms words and needs concrete action. To be clear, South Yorkshire’s towns, cities and businesses are not asking for help. The region has an excellent Strategic Economic Plan and wants to be the confident master of its own destiny. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Dan Fell is CEO of Doncaster Chamber, Louisa Harrison-Walker, executive director of Sheffield Chamber and and Martin McKervey, of the Sheffield Property Association.