Three things the new mayor of South Yorkshire needs to focus on in order to strengthen the region’s economy.
The new mayor of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), which comprises the local authorities of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield, will need to build upon the precedent set by the inaugural mayor (who is not running for re-election) to level up the city region with the rest of the country.
To do this, Centre for Cities has identified three policy priorities:
The previous Mayor finally took control of the South Yorkshire’s devolved adult education budget in August 2021, but the next mayor now needs to expand his/her focus to children’s skills and ambitions. Each local authority in the SYMCA performs below the national average in school achievement. Barnsley and Doncaster, in particular, have large numbers of educationally deprived areas.
But the new mayor, like other metro mayors, will not have any direct say over school-level education; that responsibility remains under the control of local authorities.
What the new mayor can do, though, is use the high-profile nature of the position to support the improvement of schools and educational outcomes across the region. He/she could facilitate the exchange of experiences among school leaders across the SMYCA, which would not involve the redistribution of resources across local authorities.
The mayor could also extend and/or expand existing initiatives that target children and youth. These include the Children’s University, which aims to foster a lifelong love of learning and children, and counselling and employment initiatives targeted at young people in Sheffield; the new mayor can promote these endeavours across South Yorkshire.
Buses are a critical form of urban infrastructure but remain under the control of private operators, leading to fragmented routes and expensive journeys for the people of South Yorkshire. Franchising would allow the new mayor to coordinate the routes, schedules, and fares of the bus network with one another and with the SuperTram and train services, thereby making travel by bus more attractive.
The new mayor should take inspiration from a recent court decision affirming the validity of Greater Manchester’s bus-franchising assessment and, in particular, follow its data-led approach. Greater Manchester examined, for instance, the number of passenger journeys on public transport, the changes in the real price of daily and weekly tickets, the profile of the transportation fleet, and operator punctuality.
The next mayor should also launch a review into how the franchised system can be funded. This review needs to investigate council tax increases, which is the main way Greater Manchester has raised money for its bus franchising scheme. It could also look into implementing charges for private cars that enter the soon-to-be-introduced Sheffield Clean Air Zone.
These new revenue schemes could compensate for the recent news that South Yorkshire will not be receiving any additional central government funding for the city region’s transformative Bus Service Improvement Plan.
Sheffield’s city centre should be the hub of South Yorkshire’s economy. As the centre of the largest and most productive urban area in South Yorkshire, it contains a concentration of well-paid, high-skilled jobs for residents of Sheffield and those living in nearby towns.
But while the number of jobs in the city centres of other large regional cities grew by at least 25 per cent between 1998 and 2015, the number of jobs in Sheffield’s city centre fell by 2 per cent during that period.
The next metro mayor needs a catch-up strategy to stimulate the supply of jobs in Sheffield’s city centre. This would not only benefit Sheffield, but all of South Yorkshire.
Firstly, there needs to be more high-quality office space – 22 per cent of the city centre’s total floorspace is devoted to industrial use compared to 10 per cent nationally.
Improving access to key public transport links would also stimulate the demand for jobs — currently just 21 per cent of the residents of South Yorkshire can access Sheffield city centre by public transport in 30 minutes or less.
The poor public transport accessibility is due in part to the relatively low number of residents who live along transport corridors close to railway and SuperTram stations; these areas should be prime targets for dense, new housing developments.
The mayor’s powers in the development of housing are limited, as planning power is in the hands of local planning authorities (and thus at the level of the local authority). He or she should, however, work with local authorities to explore both local development orders (LDOs) and Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) for appropriate locations, and examine how they have been used in other locations in the U.K.
Chief Executive Andrew Carter speaks with four mayoral candidates ahead of the upcoming South Yorkshire elections to discuss their priorities for improving the city region’s economy
This briefing sets out three policy priorities for the new metro mayor after the election to address the biggest issues facing South Yorkshire's economy.
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