Unity is key to delivering growth as businesses urge mayoral candidates to work together

Many business leaders gave their backing to an all powerful One Yorkshire deal. While that never materialised, the appetite for pan-regional collaboration remains strong.

The letter from influential business leaders from across the region to mayoral candidates on both sides of the Humber, urging them to work together to maximise the estuary’s potential, is evidence of this.

The Humber will be divided in two on May 1, when separate mayors for Hull and East Yorkshire and Greater Lincolnshire are elected for the first time.

But more than a dozen senior business figures have called for whoever is successfully elected to work together to ensure both banks of the estuary stay united.

As devolution is rolled out across the country, it is important that combined authorities don’t become fiefdoms. It would only serve to hold the region back.

Businesses are the wealth creators. Without them there will be no economic recovery. Those in left behind communities will continue to be deprived of opportunity.

So the Government’s backing for proposals to create a growth zone for the Humber Estuary, uniting both banks when they are split up by devolution, is to be welcomed.

A growth zone that provides a roadmap of projects would be hugely beneficial to the region. Especially during the transition to net zero. Too often in the past the region has been held back by a lack of long-term joint-up thinking.

It is clear that businesses are ready to do their bit to improve lives in the region. It is time to provide them the backing to enable them to do so.