South Yorkshire Mayor takes inspiration from Boris Johnson in bid to rebuild pride in the region

“One of the phrases that Boris had that I thought was absolutely spot on was “stay near and go far”,” said Mr Coppard earlier this month.

However, he said in South Yorkshire, despite the ability to keep graduates and local ambitious young people in the area for their first job, the region lacks the top jobs of larger cities.

This is the first group of people in a generation who face worse life chances and opportunities than their parents before them,” he said.

“I grew up in South Yorkshire. I went to university in Yorkshire. I wanted to build my life in Yorkshire but I had to leave. I had to go and do two stints in London trying to develop my career because those opportunities weren't available to me here.

“People should have the opportunity to stay in South Yorkshire and in Yorkshire more broadly and in the North, if that's what they want to do, if that's how they want to develop their career and stay near friends and family.”

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post outside his home in Sheffield before the local elections, Mr Coppard said that he sees the most important test he wants to be measured on at the end of his term in May 2026 is for South Yorkshire to regain its confidence.

“Since the closure of the pits on the steelworks and the industrial decline, and the fracturing of our communities and our region that came with it, we have lost our confidence as a region,” he said.

“And in the time that I am mayor, if nothing else, I absolutely want the region to stand on its own two feet and have that confidence that we once had.

“I worked on the Remain campaign. I ran the Remain campaign in Yorkshire, the Humber in Lincolnshire, and I saw firsthand through that campaign, just how disaffected people in all too many parts of our region were and, and how much they felt as though politics, frankly, had left them behind. And actually, I'm not sure they were wrong.”

Mr Coppard said that he has 5 priorities that he has honed during his first year in the job: Better public transport, narrow health inequalities, economic growth, delivering net zero, and showing politics can be “better and different in the region”.

Upcoming negotiations with ministers over a potential investment zone for the region, worth some 80 million pounds, as well as next-stage devolution deals modelled on those secured by the West Midlands and Greater Manchester are the first vehicles for how these can be achieved according to the mayor.

“It’s a good chunk of change, but it's certainly not enough to transform the fortunes of the region,” Mr Coppard said regarding the investment zone, adding: “we have to have a strategic plan”.

“I was talking to a guy who used to work for Obama recently, Dr. Bruce Katz, who's a world leading thinker on economic development and city growth.

“He was saying, Sheffield, and South Yorkshire is the first place in the world to have staked its claim to advanced manufacturing as the driver for the economy, and I think that is hugely exciting.”

Mr Coppard said that plans such as getting trams to the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) outside of Rotherham are key to achieving this.

“The deal that South Yorkshire has now is underpowered, compared to where Manchester and the West Midlands already were,” he said.

“Greater Manchester has been on this devolution journey for 20, if not 30 years.

“When it comes to devolution in South Yorkshire, my job is to catch up.”