A Yorkshire voice in a Yorkshire Manifesto?

Yorkshire is set to be one of the nation’s key election battlegrounds as voters in the region prepare to set out their demands, and a Yorkshire Manifesto is your way to raise the issues you care about with those seeking power.

To bring that focus together, The Yorkshire Post has started the process of ensuring the region has a united voice. We will be publishing later this month a Yorkshire Manifesto, promoting concerns and opportunities the region thinks should be high on the minds of party leaders seeking your vote.

As part of the process, we want your views on what should be a priority for Yorkshire after the May election.

Whether it’s a demand for regional devolution as Scotland pushes ahead with more power and spending, or a promise from all the parties to finally solve the rural broadband deficit facing the countryside, your views will feature in the manifesto put in the hands of the nation’s most senior politicians.

That means a chance to set the terms of the debate for Yorkshire, ensuring, for example, that flood defences are discussed now, rather than waiting for the next flood to focus the minds of MPs.

The Yorkshire Manifesto will mean that visiting politicians will have to make clear what they will do safeguard the future of bus services, for example, rather than letting MPs set the terms of the debate in your region.

The timing of the manifesto could not be more important. Labour is seeking to defend a Northern homeland it needs now more than ever, while George Osborne leads a Conservative revival attempt with his Northern Powerhouse.

To have your say and help the manifesto take shape, send in your Yorkshire wishlist on issue you want politicians to be judged on.

Potential manifesto pledges can be sent emailed to the newsdesk at [email protected] or political editor [email protected].

Or write to the paper at Yorkshire Manifesto, The Yorkshire Post, No1 Leeds, 26 Whitehall Road, Leeds, LS12 1BE

The unique demands of Yorkshire deserve to be a focus of their own

The case is made for a Yorkshire Manifesto