Doncaster is the beating heart of Yorkshire’s railways. Wherever you live in Yorkshire, whether it’s Farsley or Filey, Hull or Huddersfield, Barnsley or Bradford, if you are travelling south, you go through Doncaster.

Just 90 minutes from London and Manchester and 180 minutes from Edinburgh, we have excellent links to the rest of the country.

Over the last 170 years Doncaster has been synonymous with building and servicing trains. It was in this city that world famous locomotives like the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard were built alongside hundreds of others.

Today the rail industry in Doncaster is thriving. We’re home to 50 rail companies including Hitachi Rail which maintains the LNER trains, DB Cargo, the UK’s largest rail freight company and Volker Rail, one of the UK’s leading railway infrastructure contractors.

Altogether over 8,000 people make their living through the rail industry in our city.

Rail is present not just in the make-up of our industries, but also in our city’s educational offering.

We are the home of the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure, where our students are being moulded into the rail engineers of tomorrow.

All of this supports why Doncaster is the ideal location to be the home of the new body that will run Britain’s railways, Great British Railways (GBR). The Government has whittled the sites bidding to host the headquarters down to a shortlist of six including Doncaster and are looking for evidence of popular support.

On top of our rail heritage and excellent rail links, there are two clear reasons why we are asking people in Yorkshire to get behind our bid.

One is the benefit that having the GBR HQ here will bring to the whole region. Throughout South Yorkshire there are some 200 companies linked to the rail and logistics industries employing some 19,000 people with others, such as train manufacturer Siemens in Goole, close by.

Basing the headquarters in the region would cement its position as the rail centre of the UK providing a huge incentive to investors linked to the industry to come here, creating jobs directly and in the supply chain throughout Yorkshire.

The second reason is that one of the key criteria for determining where GBR should be based is that it should align with the Government’s Levelling Up objectives.

Doncaster has struggled as much as anywhere in the North in the post-industrial era through the loss of key industries. We’ve made so much progress, but Doncaster still faces challenges on several indicators.

Out of 21 wards in Doncaster, eight are in the top 10 per cent of the most deprived areas in England. The percentage of people with a GCSE in English and maths by the age of 19 is 65.2 per cent in Doncaster compared to 71.38 per cent in the UK. In 2021, 74 per cent of working-age adults were economically active, behind the UK average of 78.4 per cent.

Productivity is low with Gross Value Added (GVA) per hour worked being only £27.30 compared to £33.40 for the UK, and gross median weekly pay is behind the UK average by £23.03. This illustrates the potential that would be gained from having GBR in the city.

It is estimated that as many as 1,840 jobs could be created, many highly paid, and our economy could benefit by up to £110m in GVA, even without the effect of attracting more investment and jobs into our region.

To seal the deal we need to demonstrate public support. We already have strong backing from across the region, not just from MPs and councils in South Yorkshire, but stretching across the region from the Colne Valley to the Humber Bridge. Hundreds of businesses are fully behind our bid too, as are thousands of residents who recognise the difference having the railways headquarters in Doncaster could make.

Our city is made for GBR, but to make it a reality and bring the benefit to the whole region, we need Yorkshire behind us. Please cast your vote for Doncaster and South Yorkshire.

To vote visit https://gbrtt.co.uk/hq-competition-public-vote/

Ros Jones is the Mayor of Doncaster

Why Doncaster is the natural home for Great British Railways - Ros Jones