For at least forty years South Yorkshire has been battered and bruised, our confidence chipped away by the unavoidable forces of progress and change, by decisions taken 200 miles away in London, and all too often by a model for growth that ignores the very real needs of our communities.

The position we are in is neither inevitable nor insurmountable. South Yorkshire has made its mark before; we powered the industrial revolution and created materials that changed the world. We have no shortage of talent or ambition for our future.

Over the coming weeks and months, I am determined to use all the powers at my disposal to unlock our region’s potential.

I will do everything I can to restore the confidence we once had and rebuild the economy that once secured and strengthened our communities. I know others will too.

New Prime Minister Liz Truss arrives in Downing Street, London. PIC: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

But I also know that any progress we make won’t simply be the result of individual effort; either mine or that of anyone else.

Rather the progress of South Yorkshire will be built on partnerships; partnerships that bring together our communities, our public and private sectors, and – perhaps most importantly – a partnership between local and national government.

That’s why on my first day as South Yorkshire’s Mayor I wrote to Boris Johnson, offering to work in partnership on some of the big challenges facing our region; from addressing the stark health inequalities here in South Yorkshire to fixing our public transport system.

This week I have written to Liz Truss to reiterate that offer, and I can only hope for a more positive response.

Because while we cannot fix those problems facing South Yorkshire alone, neither can our new Prime Minster hope to solve the many problems facing our country without working in partnership with local leaders who are closest to those many challenges confronting people across the UK.

As we sink deeper into the cost-of-living crisis, the real tragedy of levelling-up is not simply the dearth of policies to match the government’s PR, but the missed opportunity to build on the very real enthusiasm for a new approach to growing our economy, and developing our country.

Here in South Yorkshire and across the North we want nothing more than the opportunity to stand on our own two feet; to harness our own talents in the protection of our communities and the renewal of our country.

There is no shortage of demand for a new approach; a new economic and social model that doesn’t simply provide a safety net that catches us when we fall but offers a solid foundation upon which we can all stand, equally able to access both opportunity and support; an economy in which both the public and private sector work in partnership to create opportunity and growth that are shared fairly.

It is the ever-growing sense of unfairness that frustrates so many of us, and underpins the need to level-up our country beyond simple geography.

Energy companies are allowed to make untold billions in profit while we face a winter of cold homes and broken businesses.

Bus and train companies are allowed to run failing services, while the public remain stripped of the tools to immediately regain control of a broken market.

And here in South Yorkshire most acutely, a property company was allowed to benefit from millions in public investment and support before unilaterally choosing to close our airport in the hope they can sell off the land on which it sits, despite the vocal objections of local people.

The behaviour of property developers such as the Peel Group – the owners of Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) – is emblematic of a system that is loaded in favour of a small few, rather than the wider interests of our whole community.

I want nothing more than for South Yorkshire to be a place where companies, entrepreneurs and innovators can come to grow their businesses and create wealth, but I refuse to accept a system in which private profit is devoid of public gain.

As South Yorkshire’s Mayor I expect the large companies with whom we are working to act as responsible stakeholders in our community.

Liz Truss seemed to support the thrust of that idea when she wrote to Peel Group asking them to extend the six-week timetable they had set for the review of operations at DSA.

We can only hope that as Prime Minister, she now accepts the need to fundamentally level-up our country; working in partnership with people like me to fundamentally address the glaring imbalances of power, support and opportunity, not just in South Yorkshire but across the whole of the UK.

Oliver Coppard is the Mayor of South Yorkshire.

Why levelling up is so important to the region - Oliver Coppard, Mayor of South Yorkshire