We need a lean, efficient business-led approach to boost our region's growth

Yorkshire has the same size population as Scotland, which is twice that of Wales and four times that of Northern Ireland. Its people have a huge and shared sense of pride in their "Yorkshireness", whether they live and work in the great county or look back proudly on it from their adopted homes elsewhere.

Harnessing this pride of place among its highly-skilled

workforce to achieve common goals has the power not only to lift Yorkshire from recession, but to accelerate business growth in the county significantly over the next five years.

Conversations are taking place among businesses and local authorities about the creation of local economic partnerships (LEPs) and with the coalition Government about how best to develop the economy of Yorkshire against a backdrop of decreasing public expenditure.

Yorkshire business wants to add its voice to the debate by proposing that a pan-Yorkshire approach be taken in four key areas: promotion for tourism and the generation of inward investment leads, innovation to develop new business opportunities and harness the power of our leading universities, finance for business expansion and to develop investor readiness, and intelligence to help us understand the challenges and opportunities that exist. We suggest a simple mission: grow business faster.

Business believes that the county needs to work together to ensure a sustainable future that can be shared by all, and avoid the pitfalls of twin track development where the affluent areas get richer and the deprived get poorer. We also share the Government's view that there is a need to re-balance from public to private sector and to avoid over-dependence on too narrow a range of industrial sectors.

We have looked very carefully at the real opportunities for this part of the country – areas where we have competitive advantage and a chance for real economic growth.

Yorkshire has an emerging economy from the establishment of new green business, which includes the offshore wind market, renewable technologies and carbon capture. These are recognised as a significant part of the future wealth of the UK, but it is only by fully exploiting the development possibilities of these businesses – alongside the county's other business strengths in advanced manufacturing, healthcare and medical technologies, the financial and professional service sector, tourism, food manufacturing and the creative industries – that Yorkshire will play its full part in reducing the national debt.

Despite considerable efforts in the past decade, Yorkshire in 2010 still lags behind other parts of the UK in its economic development, and we believe it is time for a new business-led approach that can bring a major change in its economic fortunes.

There is concern among the business community, our universities and in other sectors that simply transferring everything previously done regionally to either local authorities (or groupings of local authorities) or taking them back to Whitehall might not be the most effective way of enabling Yorkshire as a whole to develop its overall economic potential.

We share the Government's view that we should take a hard look at what the appropriate economic geography is for particular functions and that, wherever possible, these should operate as close to local people and communities as possible. This is why we support the LEPs that are now being developed.

At the same time, however, it is clear to us that there are some areas where it would be sub-optimal, and more costly, to operate at a scale less than Yorkshire-wide.

Business collectively needs to "step up to the plate" and work alongside the emerging LEPs and local authorities to ensure that we create the best conditions for the economy to thrive and reach its potential. Success breeds success, and we must achieve the critical mass in key sectors which will then ensure that they grow naturally.

We are proposing the creation of a pan-Yorkshire Community Interest Company (CIC) to manage in a coherent way a small number of activities aimed at growing business faster for the benefit of the whole of Yorkshire and its people. We have given it the working title of the Yorkshire Enterprise Partnership.

Business led, lean and efficient, it will be run by a top private sector chief executive with a handful of direct employees, and will operate in a strategic, focussed and highly responsive way to deliver activity to accelerate business growth. In the context of reducing public expenditure, it will achieve more for less, maximising efficiency and value for money.

Please join in to help us develop the best model we can.

For a chance to give your views go to www.bigconversation

yorkshire.org and www.yorkshirebusinessvoice.org, which are due to launch imminently.