My plan for Good Growth in South Yorkshire

Putting my plan for Good Growth into action I will:

Make South Yorkshire the best place in the world for advanced manufacturing, with an innovation corridor stretching across the region.

The University Spine in Sheffield, Gateway East in Doncaster, the Digital Seam in Barnsley, the world’s first Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District spanning Rotherham and Sheffield. We can bring those assets and opportunity sites together to create a new economy, one that restores the pride, purpose and prosperity of South Yorkshire. I will build on our status as the UK’s first Investment Zone to bring in £1.2bn of investment and 8000 jobs. We will achieve that goal by making that Investment Zone the best place to start, scale or grow a business, and by closing the gap between the productivity levels of South Yorkshire and the rest of the country.

Work with our cooperative sector and trade unions to step in where our economy is most broken.

There are all too many areas where our economic model is broken. Insecure employment is a brutal reality for people across a range of vital sectors, while prices continue to rise for often fundamental services. We will not be able to solve all those problems in South Yorkshire. But where I can help I will. I will therefore work with the trade union movement and the cooperative and employee-owned sector to support some of those delivering our most vital services, particularly those working in the gig economy, providing them with support to access training and form cooperatives and employee-owned businesses.  

Work with employers, trade unions and our communities to create a Better Business Charter that supports and recognises the best of responsible business.

We have some brilliant, progressive businesses at the heart of our communities. I will establish a South Yorkshire Business Charter that recognises and rewards our best employers; those businesses who have a plan to meet the challenge of clean growth, pay their staff a real living wage and work with trade unions to drive up safety, skills and dignity at work. I will use that South Yorkshire Business Charter as a basis for procurement decisions as we take our public transport network back under public control.  

Promote South Yorkshire across the world, attracting new investment from abroad to support our huge growth ambitions.

The bigger, better economy I am determined to build will rely on more money and talent coming from outside South Yorkshire, flowing into our communities. But for too long we have failed to create an economic growth model that promotes the types of tradeable jobs and industries that offer us the opportunity to attract that investment. We are now turning that tide around by building the new industries of the future here in South Yorkshire. I will both recognise and respond to those opportunities by developing an international trade strategy that attracts investors from across the world to be part of our huge growth ambitions.     

Lead a new approach to our creative, cultural and digital economy, unlocking the energy and talent of South Yorkshire.

South Yorkshire’s cultural and creative industries are amongst our most valuable assets. They not only make our communities happier, healthier, and more cohesive, they bring in visitors from far and wide, and help to grow our economy too. The cultural, arts and heritage sector alone generates £100 million each year for South Yorkshire. I want to harness the creative potential and ambitions of our whole region. So I will lead a new creative, cultural and digital strategy, to grow our economy, create good quality jobs and offer a real future for the next generation of our home-grown creative talent.