West Yorkshire Business Board - Tuesday 10 June 2025, 2:00pm - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

West Yorkshire Business Board
Tuesday, 10th June 2025 at 2:00pm 

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  1. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  2. James Mowbray, Committee Services Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  3. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
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  1. Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  3. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  4. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
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  1. Ben Still, Chief Executive (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
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  1. Annette Joseph
  2. Andrew Sheen
  3. Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
  4. Andrew Sheen
  5. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  6. Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
  7. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  8. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  9. Beckie Hart (Business Representative)
  10. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  11. Andrew Sheen
  12. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  13. Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  14. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  15. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  16. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  17. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  18. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  19. Ben Still, Chief Executive (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  20. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  21. Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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  1. Guilherme Rodrigues Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  3. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  4. Mark Casci
  5. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  6. Beckie Hart (Business Representative)
  7. Ruth Davidson
  8. Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative)
  9. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  10. Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
  11. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  12. Beckie Hart (Business Representative)
  13. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  14. Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  15. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  16. Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative)
  17. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  18. Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  19. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  20. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  21. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  22. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  23. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  24. Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  25. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  26. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  27. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  28. Ruth Davidson
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  1. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  2. Beckie Hart (Business Representative)
  3. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  4. Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
  5. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  6. Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
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  1. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  2. Annette Joseph
  3. Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative)
  4. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  5. Annette Joseph
  6. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  7. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  8. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  9. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  10. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  11. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  12. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  13. Asma Iqbal (West Yorkshire Business Board)
  14. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  15. Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  16. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  17. Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative)
  18. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  19. Julie Underwood
  20. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  21. Julie Underwood
  22. Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
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  1. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
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  1. Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  3. Mr Mike Birch
  4. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  5. Simon Pope, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  6. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  7. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  8. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  9. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  10. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  11. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  12. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  13. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  14. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  15. Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair
  16. Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative)
  17. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
  18. Mr Sherin Mathew (Private Sector Representative)
  19. Mandy Ridyard (Chair)
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1 Apologies for Absence

Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:00:18
.
.
James Mowbray, Committee Services Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:01:04
We have apologies today from Tracy Braven, the Mayor.
We have them from Councillors Susan Hinchliffe, Councillor Jane Scullion, who's represented
today by Councillor Courtney, and Councillor Carol Paterson.
We've got them from the private sector members, Nicky Chan -Stompson, Shirley Congdon, Erin
Holt, Lisa Johnson, Cameron Rashid, and Cully Thiare.
and we've got them from the business co -optees James Mason who is represented
by Mark Caskey and from Liz Bennington who's represented by Julie Underwood.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:01:50
Thanks James, is that the right level? So then the next point on the agenda is the

2 Declaration of Disclosable Interests

declaration of any conflicts of interest. So has anybody got anything they'd like to declare before we go on?
No.
And there is nothing that is exempt,
James, I believe.
Cool. The minutes have already been approved
previously, so we don't need to go through that.
So that brings us to point four on the agenda, which are the governance arrangements and appointments.
So this report, and we will take all the papers as read today, but this report asks the board

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press & Public

4 Governance Arrangements & Appointments

to note or to approve governance arrangements for the West Yorkshire Business Board, including
nominations to the West Yorkshire Business Board and sub to the CA, to confirm appointments
to the West Yorkshire Business Board and nominate private sector members to CA committees for
the 25 -26 year and the deputy chairs, and to confirm the West Yorkshire Business Board
appointment to outside bodies including transport for the North and so do I
Move that to you Felix
Thank you very much sir
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:03:07
Given that there are a few of these I'll go straight to the recommendations taking the paper as read most of these
all of them
Mirror the arrangements we had last year
So, to start with, the paper sets out that for you to note that the chair remains the
chair, so Mandy Radiard will remain the mayor's business advisor and will chair this board,
and that Asma Iqbal to my left will be deputy chair for this board and asks that you therefore
note that.
Mandy Radiard in her capacity as the chair will then be, we are asking that you nominate
Mandy to be the board member here who will represent you at the Combined Authority meetings
and that ASMA as deputy chair will be her substitute.
Pepper asks that you confirm the continued appointment of our private sector representatives
and there is a list of these.
I won't go through them all in appendix one.
Likewise, our local authority representatives
and substitutes are set out in appendix one as well,
and confirming our co -opted members.
And again, you've got that in appendix one.
The paper asks you to nominate private sector board members
to our various combined authority committees,
And that is set out in appendix to hoping for opportunity to have a look at that and
also
Non nominates private sector members who may not be members of this board
but nonetheless a privacy from the private sector who are also sitting in on
Relevance committees and that's also set out in appendix to
Getting almost to the end of this so
So, the paper asks that you nominate a private sector member representative here to the position
of deputy chairs of our relevant committees, and I'll set that out in a minute.
We also have a seat on the transport for the north board, and we ask that you, if you are
happy to nominate the chair, Mandy Rediard, as our representative and for Natalie Sykes
to be the substitute for that.
And finally, that your representative to, they should have said FRCC should be as more
equal as we've continued up to this point.
So we will correct 2 .10, James, to pick that up.
So the one that I said I'll walk through are the deputy chair arrangements that we've got.
And we've got names in paragraph 3 .11, except there was an omission on our part, which we
will correct.
It should have included a transport and included Natalie Sykes as continuing as the
Deputy chair there. So our apologies. We will we will rectify that and republish this so that
the version that is published will definitely include include that but for
climate energy environment
Committee we've got Jane Atkinson
cultural heritage and sport we've got Nicky chance Thompson
We've got Professor Shirley Condon.
We're working on the place committee, so we'll come back to you at your next meeting.
We've had some interviews, which Mandi will talk about in her remarks shortly,
and we're just going through the process to nominate a deputy chair.
So if you bear with us for that one, we'll come back to you.
So that picks up all our committees and apologies again for the omission in paragraph 3 .11.
That takes us through the whole paper and I will hand back to the chair to see your
approval to these nominations.
So is everyone happy?
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:07:39
Is everyone happy with those comments in that paper or are there any further comments? If
not, I take it that that's agreed. Sarah?
Yeah, I believe that there's action underway to have media down as a substitute for Jane
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:07:56
officially instead of Scott Patient. I believe, I'm not sure if that's reached you yet, Felix.
So I'm sorry if it hasn't, but I think that's working its way through our system.
So I'm sorry if that's a...
No, I think it already has.
It has, yeah.
Okay.
I'll take a note of that.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:08:12
Are there any other comments?
No.
So all the points in that paper were passed through and we'll add that in, Jay.
So is that okay with everyone?
We followed all the white protocol?
Yep.
Cool.
That's a relief.
Right.
Let's get on to things that are a little bit less dry.
And for this Ben,
on behalf of the Mayor, we'd like to move to number five.
If you could pass to the Mayor's update.

5 Mayor's Update (Verbal)

Thank you, Chair.
It makes me laugh the idea that you want something
less dry and you pass to me.
It wasn't lost on me.
Cruel, cruel.
Ben Still, Chief Executive (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:08:52
So as Maddy has said, the Mayor can't be here.
this afternoon and so she sends her apologies.
But she has given me a script and as I'm not sure
how much of the script she's actually written
and how much has been written by her team,
I better read it out verbatim.
So apologies for that in terms of the dryness.
The, there's been a lot of change
since the last meeting of the Business Board
and I'm quickly going to run through the topics
that the Mayor wanted to raise if she was here.
I will not attempt to do it in her style.
So firstly, branding for the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Network, the Weaver Network,
t -shirts available at a reasonable price, has been launched and she hopes that you have
seen that in the local media and indeed on the national media.
The Weaver Network is really important for West Yorkshire.
It will unify the public transport and active travel modes as well as heralding really the
beginning of work to simplify fares, improve travel information and journey planning, weaving
– see what we're doing there – between tram, bus, rail and bike, but also reflecting
the culture and heritage of the region.
To be cost effective – and there's a strong eye here on value for money – the brand
will be introduced gradually, starting with existing planned replacements at bus stops
and stations, and then taken further when buses are brought under public control, and
then later, of course, when we construct and then operate the West Yorkshire Tran system.
With the government spending review to be announced tomorrow, this is a critical moment.
While we acknowledge the unprecedented level of investment going into the Trans -Pennine
rail upgrade, a multibillion -pound investment in rail in the north, we do want government
to do more on improving connectivity within West Yorkshire and the rest of the North to
help keep businesses growing, create jobs and opportunities for people.
So the mayor would particularly like to thank those of you that recently signed a letter
that went to the Chancellor back in the Royal Review by the Secretary of State for Transport,
and a second letter that called for government to back our plans for growth and mass transit.
That said, the latter letter on mass transit was held back given recent developments, a
you'll have seen last week that the Chancellor announced
15 .6 billion pounds of funding for local transport projects
in England's city regions, including, it says 2 .1 here,
I think that's the right number,
2 .1 billion pounds for West Yorkshire.
That funding is part to continue the work
and start the work for the West Yorkshire mass transit,
which is later on the agenda by 2028.
and also more widely to transform six transport corridors across West Yorkshire
that aren't covered by mass transit routes and for the development of new
bus stations including those in Bradford and Wakefield. The Mayor would like to
thank those who are helping officers in the Combined Authority create the
cluster action plans, a set of focused strategies to
accelerate growth in our key sectors, digital and tech, financial and
professional services, advanced manufacturing, creative industries and the green economy.
And I'm sure we'll come back to this on the agenda, but it's a really important development
in terms of joining up the different business support, business growth, international and
other things that have traditionally been done to support business growth across West
Yorkshire in a more integrated way.
We hosted UKReef a couple of weeks ago, showcasing our plan for growth and showing that it's
been delivered at pace. Rather than talk a bit about that, the Mayor would like to remind you
all that CLIMB UK is coming shortly. My God, there's a lot of this. The UK's Festival for
Business Growth is coming on the 2nd and 3rd of July, a space where start -up, scale -ups, SMEs,
and industry leaders converge to accelerate their journeys towards success. We were present at CLIMB
last year and hoping to build on that this year.
We're working very hard to improve supply chain
through inward and outward focused trade missions,
focusing on new and emerging high impact markets that
align West Yorkshire's sector strengths,
those developed in our custom plans with growth ambitions.
We undertook a trade mission to India in February
that proved pretty good timing in terms of leading up
and leading into the recent UK -India free trade agreement.
And Felix and I had a follow -up session last week
with the businesses that we took,
and to think about how we really capitalized
on the relationships and the networks
that were built as part of that trip.
We're also continuing to engage with specific areas
of companies within the United States at the state level,
building on the deal that was struck with the UK
on easing tariffs for certain UK goods.
The Mayor continues to feed the concerns of business directly into central government,
having recently travelled to London for meetings at number 10, the Mayor's Council chaired
by the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Council of Nations and Regions chaired by the Prime
Minister. The Mayor would like to make you aware of the launch of the Work and Health
Plan last week, a £37 million partnership co -created with the NHS following consultations
with residents and employers. This scheme will support the design and delivery of support
for residents and employers to ensure more people with disabilities and health conditions
can access good quality work, deliver our ambition for West Yorkshire to have the highest,
sorry, the healthiest residents and workforce in England by 2040. And finally, the Mayor
wanted to mention UK City of Culture in Bradford, supporting a legacy of cultural regeneration
and economic growth. There's a packed series of events as part of that program and she
I guess wanted to use this as a reminder to say please do go take advantage of that and
help this festival be absolutely groundbreaking in terms of its success. Finally, a special
thanks to those businesses who are sponsoring events enabling us to be the most out of Bradford
2025. I'll stop there. Thank you very much Ben and well done on that. I've now got a
Chairs my briefing so I think we'll roll straight on to that and then if anybody has got any questions
We'll roll them up together

6 Chair's Update (Verbal)

Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:15:37
And I'll try not to cover some of the same things and I definitely won't cover the whole year because otherwise we wouldn't
run out of time but some
for business in the region
I'm obviously a
Pivot between the business board here and also what goes on in our region is worth bearing in mind that we need to we all
represent the business board.
It's not just the work that I do.
And this is only a summary of the work that I've been doing.
There's so much more to this.
And in our report, we'll try and capture more of that.
But since the last meeting, I've had some great visits
to businesses in our region.
That includes one of our brilliant health tech
businesses in Leeds, Daedalus, to hear more
about their work supporting efficiencies in health care.
Obviously, health care and health tech
is one of our growth clusters.
and making sure that we maximize the opportunity for those
businesses is essential.
It was particularly great to see how some of their employees have
been helped to move into health tech careers with them via the
combined authority funded courses through the CODIS
guild and that was something that resonated throughout that
business and starts to join up the work that we're doing across
the piece and the relevance of that to businesses.
On the same day and in the same arena I met with Dame Linda
the team that leads teaching hospital trust to get an overview of the plans for the development
of an innovation hub. The old medical school will be an amazing facility, not far from
here, just up the road. It's definitely worth going to see if you get an opportunity. It's
fantastic the work that's going on there. It will play a key role in our ambitions for
the region around health and innovation. They already have an innovation pop -up hub, but
that focus will be a focus just like nexus is for the region,
specifically around health tech.
Another great example of innovative businesses
in our region, and there are many,
is an SME called FET, fiber extrusion technology.
They're a world leader in bespoke melt and wet spinning
extrusion technology.
And their machining is used in technical textile R &D
facilities all over the world, with customers
ranging from global sports brands
to global health care companies.
So it's brilliant to visit them and see
the innovation that they are leading on.
And following on from last year's trade mission to Nashville, I was pleased to meet a delegation
from Vanderbilt University as part of their visit to the region. Richard here came on
that trade mission with me and a lot of others, including the Mayor. That builds on the strategic
partnership being built between the University of Leeds and Vanderbilt following our visit
and as a direct result of that trade mission. And it will lead to student exchanges and
collaborations, especially in creative health, building on our health bridge MOU.
And whilst we talk of trade missions, when I've been talking to businesses, it was great
to see at least one of the businesses that went on the India Trade Mission actually capitalising
on that opportunity and really changing their business model based on that trade mission
too.
Ben mentioned UK Reef in May.
I think we've mentioned, we welcomed 16 ,000 delegates to Leeds for that event, which is
an economic growth in itself in terms of bringing people to this region.
I was privileged to lead a number of sessions, including a focus on the Eastern Growth Corridor
and how innovation is connecting the commercial hubs of Leeds and Wakefield, a packed house
discussing our region's vision for a world -class fully
integrated transport network, as well as a fabulous session
on the pivotal role of advanced manufacturing
in the core food economy.
Following that, the mayor and I attended the Bradford Chamber
of Commerce annual dinner as the guests of the chamber.
And thank you, Mark, for that.
Looking at the incredible impact of the Bradford city of culture
and the importance of creative industries
to our people and our economy.
It was great to see some of you at that event.
and building on culture and visitors here and tourism, it was great to hear of the ongoing
work around the visitor economy at the LVET last week, which is showing growth in this
region of over 8 % in that sector. And so, you know, any sector anywhere in the country
would grab 8 % growth, so I don't think we can underestimate, I know Barney talks about
this all the time, underestimate the opportunity for small businesses and anchor institutions
to build on the visitor economy. I also led discussions on franchising and mass transit
at the Mayor's Business Council, so those are the biggest businesses in West Yorkshire.
We all know, as do they, that that will be transformational for businesses and employees
in this region. I've attended two business board network meetings, that's the network
of business board chairs across the country, or across England actually, and that was last
Wednesday with the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith, about the governance priorities in
that space, and then later that day with Isabelle Stephen, the Director General at DBT, giving
an overview of DBT's work across trade deals, industrial strategy, growth hub, exports and
their plan for small business. And it's great to welcome Julie Underwood to represent DBT
here today, who will give us a quick update later on in the meeting.
I would also like to mention the new women in manufacturing and engineering network which
Farah here has been championing, aiming to drive forward this sector in the region promoting
inclusive growth by increasing representation and inspiring future generations. The wider
network launch will take place on the 26th of June from 1 until 4 in Leeds. It's open
to all working in the manufacturing and engineering sectors. Men are also encouraged to attend
as allies. Please do promote that against your network and if you need any further information
I'm sure Pharoah can help you after the meeting. It would be great to engage you with that.
And whilst we're talking about talent, STEM Fest, which many of you might be involved
in, will be in Bradford this month. I think it's the week after next, which will be a
fantastic opportunity for about 3 ,000 school children across Yorkshire to come together
and look at STEM within the region, including having NASA at that event amongst other companies
both large and small and really inspiring that next generation is something that will
help all of us with our talent pipelines. Last but not least, as many of you will be
aware, I've been involved in interviewing for new members of this board. I've spoken
to some of you about how we might strengthen the group over the coming days and weeks and
how we might move this to make sure we are focusing absolutely and with a laser like
vision on the growth clusters as well as making sure we support the foundational economy.
So I'd love to talk to you more about that after this meeting. And of course all eyes
are on the spending review tomorrow and what that will mean for businesses in the region.
So we'll be getting a download on that as quickly as we can and we'll make sure that
the views from here are shared across the private sector members and please make sure
that your views are shared back here so that we can we can
Report back to the mayor and make sure we're representing this region within any conversations that she might be having
So on that note, and I'm sorry, it was so long -winded
But are there any questions or comments than anybody would like to make?
And if not, I'll move on to the communications updates

7 Communications Update

You'll be pleased to know that we're not too far behind time
So this paper provides an update on communications and marketing activity to support the business
agenda.
I'm really pleased to look at some of the figures in that.
And is Will in the room?
Andrew.
Sorry, Andrew, I didn't spot you down there.
Right at the back.
It feels like a big hall that we're in.
But, Andrew, if you could take us through just the key highlights and then I'll open
the floor to discussion.
Thank you, Chair.
Annette Joseph - 0:23:39
Yeah, so the purpose of what we do in communications and marketing broadly is really to kind of grow
Andrew Sheen - 0:23:45
the region's economy and support the business ecosystem across the region as well as
Highlighting the range of opportunities available both in terms of business supports and then the broader ecosystem
Some of the highlights from the past year have been or the websites
traffic is down slightly although I think part of that is kind of the
normal variance that we get with traffic and also the fact that we just haven't
launched any kind of big show -stopping new business support products in the
past six or so months. However the social media and business e -newsletter
engagement has increased dramatically over that time as well. In terms of the
number of posts that are being shown to people, that's up 150%.
But more importantly, the amount of engagement that we're getting on those is up by about
a third.
Equally, on the newsletter, which goes out to 11 ,000 email addresses every month, we've
managed to grow the open rate for that from 33 % to 41%, sorry, which is an increase of
about a quarter.
And then the number of people who are actually opening the email and then clicking on stories within that
is a hundred and eighty eight percent
So over the past kind of six months we've really
Tried to understand what works for businesses and what businesses are interested in seeing and reading about
But focusing more on things that have a direct action that we can ask people to take
and also making content more engaging and interesting and use more case studies and
real -life examples.
I also want to just touch briefly on UK Reef, which took place two, three weeks ago.
As Ben and you both said, it's a huge opportunity for the region.
Sixteen thousand people from across the UK and increasingly beyond come to the region
for three days.
That means full bars, restaurants, hotels for the duration.
It brings about 20 million pounds into the Leeds economy.
And I overheard people saying that they were in hotels in as far away as York and Sheffield.
So it really is kind of at capacity now in Leeds.
For us, it's an opportunity to show the range of investment opportunities and sort of the
confidence that we have in the region.
So we had 40 investable opportunities in a prospectus and interactive digital map.
And we had a range of talks, both open sessions and closed invite -only sessions with investors and developers.
We're still collating the impacts of UK Reef at the moment and we'll be happy to give you an update at the next meeting.
But all in all we think it was a worthwhile use of time and resources and we're already
looking at UK Reef 2026.
Thank you, Andy.
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:27:02
Andrew, you started off by saying that this is not just about promoting the combined worker
command authority but wider business ecosystem, I think you called it.
That's not what it looks like.
It looks to me like it's concentrating or it's all about publicly funded business support
as if that's the whole ecosystem.
And of course it's just a very small part of how we all work to support businesses in
the region.
I mean, that's something we have tried to reflect.
Andrew Sheen - 0:27:31
If we haven't necessarily achieved that, then we'll go and look again at how we're promoting
things.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:27:43
I think, Martin, on that, the new website is being worked on at the moment, and the
idea of that website will be to join up that ecosystem better.
And I know that DBT are also trying to work in this area so that we create, wherever you
come in, you come to the same opportunity.
But I think it's important that we look at it, yeah.
I do mean on behalf of Chambers, I'm saying that this by and large, most business support
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:28:07
is provided by lots of firms of solicitors and accountants and business coaches everywhere.
That's the big bit of it. So it's all of that we seem to be missing in the communication
of the kind of support that's available across West Yorkshire, which is why it's a great
place to run and grow your business.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:28:26
I couldn't agree more, Martin, and I think the more we do on that the better. Any other
comments?
Thank you.
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 0:29:14
Beckie Hart (Business Representative) - 0:29:23
.
Thank you.
Andrew, can I come back first?
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:29:45
We can make sure we put the mics on so the live stream can hear us.
Don't worry. Ben would like to come back on that.
Oh, it's just a mic. Okay, sorry Andrew.
I believe this is something which we have raised with UK Reef.
Andrew Sheen - 0:30:00
and as you say it's not entirely our area.
They do offer reduced rates for,
I think it's people below 25 or 30,
and they do do a lot of community work as well
with schools and so on around the area of the docks.
But yes, as the host city and as a destination partner,
I'm sure it's something that we can raise with them
at a future date.
Felix, would you like to come back on that and then I'll come to Richard?
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:30:29
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:30:31
Yeah, thank you. I wouldn't want to promise that we will be able to achieve anything.
You are right. It is the prices on the high side, but they have over demand for what they
put on, so they have no incentive in that respect to do anything there. However, it
It was really interesting to note, and I'm meeting with them next week, I think, to work
through how we went this year and what we're going to do next year.
But it was interesting to note how big, how much bigger the fringe was this year.
And they acknowledge themselves that the fringe is beginning to take on a life of its own.
And there is something about how we curate that to be much more inclusive.
and maybe we could get to a point where the fringe itself is as big if not bigger.
And that then allows us to have a lot more space to open up events and opportunities for many others.
Andrews Rise, there's a free pass for people under 25 and we work with them to get as many reduced or free enough tickets as we can,
but there's a limit to what we can do.
It's just the whole package that we keep working with.
Thanks Felix.
It's worked for Edinburgh.
Richard.
Hi, I'm yet to attend UK Reefs.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:31:55
I'll hold comment there unfortunately,
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 0:31:56
I'm normally away, but just back to the comms piece.
I see a lot of it on LinkedIn and other places,
so I think you're doing a really good job
and you can see it building momentum
and regular content which is important.
What I think we might need to shift to,
and it ties in with a sort of cluster aspect,
but a bit more segmentation.
So we see the right content for the right audience.
I think it may be potentially out to the 11 ,000
at the moment, and what's right for me
and where we are as a business,
versus another business might be very different.
And then you start getting a bit fed up
of seeing the content from the combined authorities.
So as we grow and have hopefully more sort of people
following the organization and engaging
with the organization, I think that stratification
and segmentation is really important.
That's a great point, Richard.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:32:47
And within the clusters, one of the things I'm keen to do
is once a month have like a health tech takeover
of the socials or an advanced manufacturing takeover
of the socials.
However, that's not agreed yet.
But it certainly is something that to start to talk
in either subject matters or size of business that makes it more pointed towards you, I
couldn't agree more.
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 0:33:10
I think again then there's other, that business interaction as well and representation of
those organisations as well who are walking the walk.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:33:18
Two of the things that have been asked for in this paper are we're developing the health
tech narrative and also the region of learning and creativity narrative. So part of engagement
about telling the right stories to the right audience.
So we'd really like any help that any of you have
or people that you think would be relevant to help with this
to help us develop that narrative better.
So if you would like to be involved in that,
please will you drop a line to either myself or James
or anyone else in the team to be part of it.
We're also going to be launching a new website for business
and one of the reasons I think we're being more successful
with our comms is that it's becoming more business centric and we've been trying to
push on that I know as a group over the last year. And so we've gone from 19 % to 41 % in
the figures in terms of emails and click through rates from 9 % to 20, no sorry, from an average
sector of 19 % to 41 % is what we've got in West Yorkshire, from an average for the country
of 9 % to 26 % is what we've got in West Yorkshire. So we're definitely doing well compared to
the averages. What we want to do is make sure that the new website is even better than that.
So we do want volunteers to help us start to test the wireframes. And so anybody who
has got a little bit of time to help with that, and I know time and business are two
things that don't necessarily go together, but we would be very grateful for. So if there's
anything you can do to help, please, please reach out and we can have a look at that.
The other thing on this, Andrew didn't mention, were the black business awards. So we will
send out some collateral if you could promote that on your socials and elsewhere. I think
it's really important that we make sure that as many people as possible can work with that
opportunity. And then if any of you are attending CLIMB, which is not as expensive as Reeve
but still isn't cheap. But if anybody is attending CLIMB, then please reach out because we can
help brief you on anything that you're doing at that event. So if you would like a briefing,
then we will have that ready for you. Please reach out. And Ben.
Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make another comment about UK Reef, actually, because I
think the conversation that you've had so far has been kind of analytical in its nature
Ben Still, Chief Executive (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:35:39
and challenging, it's a fantastic, fantastic event to have in West Yorkshire and to have
in Leeds. And if it wasn't in Leeds, we'd be wishing that it was and it is here. And
it's as an opportunity that brings together a really big cohort of investors and businesses
from across the world increasingly, it's a real opportunity. So the point that Felix
made about how can we make more of the activities that go around that plays into the part I
wanted to make really, which is that we want to do a lot more of the planning for next
year's REEF and our approach to that much earlier this year, in fact, pretty much starting.
And as part of that, we can definitely try and address some of the issues that have been
raised, particularly around how we can encourage participation and encourage people to get
involved in the process, because we want to keep it in West Shores, we want to keep it
It is fantastic and we want it to grow and grow.
Sorry.
Thanks Ben.
If there's no more comments then I'll move on.
But suffice it to say the Weaver network cubes are at the back if you want to see them.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:36:47
And also in the pack there is some of the collateral that was used for that.
So it's definitely an exciting time.
I think the Weaver network will be a big focus and obviously is relevant to business as well as people.
because it helps us get students to training and it helps us get people to work. So it
will be the start of what will be fundamentally transformative for this region. And talking
of transformative for the region, we need to have a look at where we are currently.
So PETA has provided on behalf of the team a deep dive into the indicators from the CA
State of the Region report and those that have the greatest bearing on the business
community. It's our annual stock take of West Yorkshire's progress against a basket of high -level
economic, social, transport and environmental indicators. I'm going to ask you to note the
key messages and also we'll have some time to follow up anything that you're particularly
interested in. Peter, I'll hand over to you.
Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:47
Thank you, Chair. So, as the Chair mentioned, the purpose of the paper is to share the key

8 State of the Region

messages from the latest State of the Regional Report and we're focusing on the indicators
that are most relevant to business,
and we believe that this analysis
can provide an important context
to the deliberations of the board.
This year we've received feedback
that would be beneficial to provide extra analysis
and explanation in our review of the indicators.
So in the paper we've undertaken a deep dive
into a number of indicators
that we feel are most relevant to businesses,
and we're going to run through some of the key messages,
but obviously in the limited time available
we're going to focus on selected indicators.
Now first of all, I'm going to hand over to my colleague,
Guy, who's going to cover economic growth and productivity.
So the latest GEA figures we have for 2023,
Guilherme Rodrigues Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:38:38
they suggest some important changes
in the economic composition of West Yorkshire.
Our productivity figures also show
some positive signs since 2019.
First of all, I'd just like to highlight
that the regional data is quite volatile
and sometimes there are some changes in methodology.
But that said, we think there are some trends
that are worth highlighting.
So as I said, GVA growth in 2023 in broader terms was in line
with the national average at 0 .4 % of GDP.
But the drivers in terms of sectors are very different.
And we observed economic growth to be very different
within West Yorkshire District.
So Leeds
Was the one living?
With various metric growth comparing with the remaining ones and Bradford's showed a particularly weak performance
In terms of the sectors on the upside
Construction has been performing quite well in all districts like growing at 5 %
In 2023 compared with just 2 % in England and also professional
administrative, information and communication, knowledge related services have been performing also above the national average.
On the downside, as we perform in line with average in broader sense, we have manufacturing.
Very weak performance, a contraction in 2023, while UK, England remains stable with some minor growth.
The underperformance itself has mostly to do with the composition of our manufacturing sector.
So when we look at the sub -sector we perform roughly in line with the average,
but we have overweight in some industries that underperformed last year like textiles, wooden paper and food processing.
When we look back to 2019,
most of the the trends, most of the figures mentioned above,
uh, old for a longer trend.
So manufacturing under performance,
after a very strong, uh, cycle before COVID,
so we were performing better in manufacturing till 2019.
We have been struggling a - a couple last years.
And construction services have been performing quite well, especially in leads.
Without being definitive, these data points of in - services performing very,
very well, uh,
manufacturing struggling a bit, uh,
shows a different structure on the economy, more based on services, more based on leads, potentially in the city center.
So we think this has quite important implications for all the economy function and areas like transport and so on.
In terms of productivity, unfortunately, we don't have the 2023 data yet. We'll have it in a week or so.
But the picture has been broadly positive since
2017, so we had
86 % of the productivity of the UK per hour. Now we were we are at 88 percent and this
Convergence has been accelerating since 2019
Roughly speaking the the rate that we are growing above the UK average is in line with our local growth plan
So it will take decades to converge but we think has been quite positive
Despite we not having the 2023 data, we have estimated in house and it's likely to grow
in line with the national average for that year.
Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:42:12
Turning to employment now, our estimate for 2024 based on HMRC administrative data shows
that the highest employment rate for West Yorkshire since 2015 and that's the earliest
point in time for which we have data.
But nonetheless, there is a gap in the employment rate of around 3 percentage points with the
UK, which is equivalent to 50 ,000 fewer employees in employment in real terms.
What we can also see, particularly in the early months of 2025, is a small decline in
the employee count, both nationally and at West Yorkshire level.
So we've seen a peaking of the employee count in mid -2024, and now we're seeing signs of
softening in the labour market.
Turning to the next indicator that we're focusing on,
which is around business stock.
As we know, the region has a low business density
relative to its population,
and obviously that has implications for the strength
and dynamism of the economy.
We have around 25 ,000 fewer businesses than we would have
if the region matched national business density.
And this is due, in sectoral terms,
We've got a low density of businesses across most sectors except for manufacturing and health
but the particular deficits are particularly pronounced deficits for tradable services like professional services and
Information and communication and we also have fewer construction businesses than you would expect
Based on the size of the population in terms of business size
The main deficit relates to the smallest businesses with zero to nine employees
So quite similar in terms of medium size and larger businesses.
And across the local authority picture, Calderdale actually performs best in terms of business
density and is closest to the national average.
Leeds also performs above the West Yorkshire average, but it's got a lower business density
than relevant comparators like Greater Manchester and Bristol.
The positive news is that the business stock of the region grew faster than nationally
in recent years and we've seen a modest reduction in the gap with the national average on business
density over time but still much to do to fully address that gap.
In terms of skills, as we know skills are key to raising productivity and driving it
economic growth. We still have a deficit of people with higher level qualifications and
an excess of people with no qualifications or lower level qualifications only. So we've
around 180 ,000 people have no qualifications or only low -level qualifications and we have 83 ,000 fewer people with a qualification at level four and above than we would have if we match the national average attainment rate.
And it's worth noting that the deficit of qualifications isn't just about jobless people, so we have a significant deficit in the employed workforce of people qualified at level four and above.
The positive news again is that the region has narrowed the gap with the
national average on qualification performance quite significantly
improving faster than national average in recent years in terms of both an
increase in higher skilled people and also reducing the number of lower
skilled people and we set out the reasons for that in the paper so it
includes things like the stock flow effect, better qualified people entering
the labour force and older people who tend to be less well qualified exiting
We've seen improved higher education entry rates. We've seen a contribution from lifelong
learning. And the region has also seen some success in attracting graduates from elsewhere
in the UK, particularly in the case of Leeds, which is one of the foremost areas of the
UK in that regard. Turning to innovation, in the paper we focused
on R &D spend as a measure of innovation activity. We recognise that that's an input -based measure.
but we still think it provides an insight.
And West Yorkshire underperforms the national average
by substantial margin in its investment.
And its investment is a fraction of that
of leading areas of the country.
As we say on the paper, much of this deficit
in invest, R &D investment appears to be structural.
So we have a lack, relative lack,
of specialist R &D capacity in the region,
which in turn is likely to be due to a low,
relatively low representation
of R &D intensive activities like pharmaceuticals,
automotive, software development and aerospace.
And then finally turn to trade.
There's been some recovery in the region's exports
since the disruptions of Brexit and the pandemic.
So goods exports are back to where they were in cash terms
and service exports around a fifth higher
than they were pre -pandemic, both based on ONS data.
But obviously we can infer that the trends
are much less positive in real terms when we take into account inflation because the
export figures are presented in current prices. Is it notable that service exports now make
a bigger contribution to the region's economy than goods exports? This has been largely
driven by non -EU markets, including India and the US, and these sorts of markets for
services represent major opportunities, as we noted in the paper. But balancing that
positivity, the region's export intensity, relevant to its growth value added, is relatively
low for both goods and services.
And for services, financial and professional services, are the staple of the region's service
exports, particularly centred on leads.
So that would need to be focused for action in raising that export performance.
Bradford's also seen strong improvement in its export,
its service export performance in recent years,
which presents a potential opportunity.
When we turn to the export intensity of goods,
that's been, performance there has been,
it's been relatively weak in recent years,
although Colerdale and Kirklees together
have seen an increase in goods export intensity.
Leeds and Wakefield have both seen falls
in their performance around goods export intensity
and Wakefield in particular, its export intensity
looks really low in view of its strong manufacturing base.
So that's an obvious area for further investigation.
So our overall assessment is that West Yorkshire's
improved its relative position in recent years
across a range of indicators, as we've mentioned,
including economic growth and productivity,
skills in the business stock.
It will still, it will need to outperform the national average over a sustained period,
however, to close the gap in a way that meets local growth plan objectives and we plan to
quantify the progress that's being made against those local growth plan targets more clearly
in future.
And there are also, as Guy noted, underlying changes in the economic structure of the region
that we can see towards tradable services with an increased focus on leads.
And then finally we can see opportunities around service exports, building on lead strength
and the recent growth in Bradford as well.
So that's back to you, Chair.
Thanks Peter, that's a lot to cover in a short period of time and I appreciate that the papers
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:49:39
were pretty thick to read through.
But I guess from a low base, the good news is that on many of the metrics we are making
progress, maybe not making progress as quickly as we would like to, so how we accelerate
that, and there are some key things that you've called out there.
Has anybody got any questions on the data?
Mark, I was going to come to you because you look at the quarterly economic survey, don't
you, and you might have some insight from that.
Yeah, I'm not going to provide that because we just closed the field yesterday and I've
not looked at all the data sets and I'm more so conscious this is being recorded so I would
want to say that now I'd later regret.
But what I would say is that it will come as no surprise to anyone involved in business
around the room that the big concerns are taxation and wages and that's now a consistent
theme for multiple quarters and that's I think perhaps might be one of the barriers that
we're seeing on a lot of the metrics that Peter and Guy were running through.
It's just very expensive to run a business at the moment.
We await the review tomorrow with bated breath to see if there's any relief.
But it's the message that we keep hearing, I'm sure.
Mark Casci - 0:50:54
Becky and Barney and anyone else who represents businesses around the table have a similar
story teller.
It's just tough times at the moment.
We'll see what happens with the next set of data.
and there is a, Peter alluded as well,
there's a clear divide between the service
and manufacturing sectors.
The service sector seems to be recovering quite quickly.
Manufacturers are struggling,
and it's that cost of business that's the reason behind that.
Thanks, Mark, I'm sorry to put you on the spot.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:51:22
Arnie, and then Becky.
Yeah, a couple of things.
Beckie Hart (Business Representative) - 0:51:30
I mean, one, the service side of things doing well
actually might be quite good for productivity,
because productivity seems to be doing better in the service side of things.
That's quite interesting.
One thing I'm thinking was actually said,
but there's a real difference between Leeds and the rest of West Yorkshire,
particularly between Leeds and Bradford,
and I think it was mentioned this actually does provide questions
about our transport policy and how we, you know,
because the whole theory of what we're trying to do, I think,
It rests upon the economy of Leeds bringing up the rest of West Yorkshire, I think, if
we're honest.
I think that's how a lot of the growth plan and a lot of other things that have been done
by this, you know, approved by this board, discussed by this board.
That's what it's all based on.
And so I think it really just starkly shows how important it is to think about how, if
Ruth Davidson - 0:52:24
Leeds is doing well, how we can get that wealth distributed amongst West Yorkshire.
And I think it's particularly pertinent at this time when we've got a West Yorkshire
Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative) - 0:52:31
mass transit sort of nearer starting and is that a lead system or can it actually get
wealth into Bradford in particular?
Thanks Barney and we'll come back to that in a second.
Becky.
Thanks.
I mean it's really, really interesting.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:52:51
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:52:53
I'm fascinated by the low business density and how can we as a region change the dialogue
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 0:53:01
Beckie Hart (Business Representative) - 0:53:04
on that because the more businesses you have in, the more taxate you have, the more wealth
creators you have. Is it linked to business support that we've already spoken about? So
that was the thing that probably stood out for me. Then the other one was of all the
and all the missions, if you could pick three,
where do we really want to see the dial moved?
Not expecting an answer now, but I think, you know,
there's a lot there and there's five missions,
so yeah, to pick one per mission,
where would we really want to see the dial moved?
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:53:36
Thanks, Becky.
Ben, would you like to come back on anything?
A couple of comments, if I may.
So I think Becky's absolutely right
and the business density figures are really interesting.
I guess my question to the team is,
actually the numbers that sit in there
are not that different.
So I think that you were quoting a figure,
West Yorkshire figure of kind of density of 62 per thousand
compared to a Bristol figure of 64 per thousand.
Is that significant or are we worrying unduly?
The -Tobani's points on investment in transport, I think -I don't think that the strategy here
is about trying to connect everywhere to lead with the greater respect to lead to colleagues.
It's about the fact that better transport connectivity tends to lead to higher levels
of business growth, productivity, kind of what the economists would call agglomeration.
And if you look at places that are better connected, they tend to have higher levels
of agglomeration and productivity than those that don't.
So it's about how do we connect up West Yorkshire, including to the places around West Yorkshire,
to generate that.
Because if you look at the three underpinnings of high business productivity, they tend to
be that level of transport connectivity, good skills, and innovation.
And for me, it's the points on innovation, I guess, that are kind of my last question
to the team.
If they're structural, as you suggest, Peter, then really what should we be doing?
And is that a subject that we should be focusing on as the board?
Thank you.
Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:55:25
So on the point about the business density, I mean, we provide a range of comparators.
There is a significant gap with the UK average on business density.
and even the other sort of selected comparators we used,
including Greater Manchester and Bristol,
when you sort of look at that in real terms,
that's still, you know, it's still quite a significant gap.
I think the local growth plan will seek to address that
because I guess it's a symptom of the performance
of the wider economy and the sort of vibrancy
of the wider economy.
On the point about the innovation
I think a good deal of it is due to structural factors and the sort of composition, the central composition of the economy.
I guess the way you address that is through attracting additional investment in sort of R &D intensive activities.
That will have spillover effects across the economy and also trying to maximise the sort of R &D intensity of what you already have
in terms of those sectors that are already here,
which is not to sort of understate
the research and development activity
that's already happening in the region, which is extensive.
But we face a gap with, not just with the national average,
but also with areas that we might consider to be
sort of reasonable comparators and sort of reasonable benchmarks
that we might want to match.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:57:03
I have two comments, really. When I read through it, I was actually quite optimistic because
Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative) - 0:57:05
I thought a lot of the indicators were really good and we were closing the gaps. So one
question is how do we use these to talk the region up? Because we're all doing it now.
We're talking, we're trying to, you know, talk about the gaps, but I think we should
talk region up because that has other benefits. And the other, and it comes probably from
a position of ignorance actually from my side because I'm sort of the industrial sector.
But if you look at the three that would concern me, I wrote three down, child poverty, well -being,
and healthy life expectancy. And my question really is the health sector that we promote
from a business perspective, does that actually benefit the locals to improve these KPIs or
are we just talking about it from a business board perspective? How do we link them with
what we do here in the business board.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 0:57:57
Felix?
Ali, that's quite a broad question.
So...
Don't know if I've got a sensible answer for you,
but I completely share that.
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:58:08
And it's something that we've asked ourselves
and us colleagues quite a lot.
I suppose from Leeds point of view,
the health tech sector we've got
is not so much on the making of medicines and big pharma side.
It's more on the big data, population health, and also
devices and diagnostics, mainly because we have people here
who are companies here who are brilliant at using
huge amounts of data and turning that into something
that is insightful to help.
So quite a bit of what we do here does help with population health.
But the state of the health of our people has much less to do with necessarily how well our hospitals or our care sector is doing.
is the determinants of health, which is about skills
and employment and housing and all of those things,
which many people around this table have some kind of lever
to help us deal with.
And I think that is where I would focus more
in terms of that, of course, the health sector itself
is important, but how we work on the wider determinants,
It's no, if you look at the report that the public health directors put out every year
about the health of our district, people in our districts, every map, if you overlay them,
look absolutely the same.
You know, people with the worst health are the same people with the worst, lowest skills,
same areas where you have the lowest level of employment, same areas where you have the
where it's housing and on and on and on.
They are really powerfully linked
and we need to be dealing with those determinants.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:00:13
And I'm gonna come to Richard and then Sarah,
but the other thing I would say from a business perspective
is the Fair Work Charter isn't a thing, it's a journey.
And part of the thing we can do within business
is encourage more and more businesses to go on that journey
of making sure we're, you know, most employers will be fair,
but get better and better at that,
because becoming better and better at that as businesses,
we actually help address some of those key drivers
that underpin that health expectancy, child poverty,
and other things that are concerning,
but I do share your concerns, Richard.
Yeah, I'll also share your concerns,
and I think the Fair Work Charter is a great starting point
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 1:00:55
for many organisations to get behind. I chair the health tech cluster for West Yorkshire
Combined Authority and what you're bringing up is absolutely part of the overall strategy.
So you've got a number of universities that are part of that, the academic health science
networks, you've got not particularly the businesses involved but a lot of the supportive
ecosystem around health and it sort of aligns the combined authority strategy in terms of
improving everyone's wellbeing, health, et cetera,
especially in those poorer socioeconomic groups.
So overall, I think there is a really clear drive
to improve that.
How that comes through obviously takes time,
but it's definitely a core part of all those organizations.
You look at the University of Puttystoke, for example,
there's a wellbeing campus being built,
and that's a huge investment.
I know in West Yorkshire and Sheffield they've got something similar.
So, I mean health is moving that way and it's about capturing people in the community before
they get into the hospital. So all these brilliant developments and innovations that actually
support all groups, not just those people who have access to good healthcare, hopefully
bring everyone up to a, I'm not saying the same standard, but it's definitely high on
the agenda without question.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:02:19
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 1:02:20
Just on some of the data on the manufacturing side of things, and again I'm quite like you, I'm very half glass half full.
We focus on the sectors that are declining in manufacturing, but are there any that are booking the trend and doing the opposite?
And are we supposed to intervene in these declining industries, no disrespect to anyone that is in the industries,
or should we expect that and focus on those manufacturing businesses that align with the local growth plan back to this emerging tech and other areas.
So that's, it'd be interesting to see more data there.
And I think that then goes into your export data perhaps and if, you know, is the decline domestic related or overseas related?
and again I know we're seeing growth in export but perhaps not with relation to inflation
but actually stripping that down again to sector we're seeing some really positive goods
being exported around the world again in line with the local growth plan or not so I think
you mentioned you're going to start digging into those indicators more clearly when the
local growth plan is sort of more set and defined but I think those are questions I
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:03:31
So can I come back on that Peter? Rather than have the answers, part of the sector plans,
the cluster plans will be to dig into it, absolutely that data. So Peter might back
me up but that's where we're heading is how do we deep dive now into some of those drivers.
I speak from an industry that's in boom at the moment which is aerospace but I know a
a lot of the industries that are in decline
employ a lot of people, so there's definitely a transition
in how we move more quickly to green manufacturing
rather than from oil and gas, for example,
will be part of that solution.
But Peter, we are doing that work, aren't we?
And just to mention on the trade side,
we've commissioned a range of work to do
Peter Glover, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:04:20
so that there are quite a lot of limitations
to the trade data, particularly around sort of sectors
and commodities and what have you, and destinations.
So we've commissioned a piece of work to look at that
HMRC data in more detail, which we might,
I expect we'll bring to a future business board
to share that.
And I think on the manufacturing sort of subsector side,
some parts of manufacturing did outperform
the national average over the period that we're talking
about so it partially offset the declines in some bits of manufacturing.
I think just to re -emphasise something that Guy mentioned is manufacturing has been performing
pretty strongly up until around 2022 so maybe a manufacturing resurgence is not necessarily
a kind of, you know, a sort of start of a sort of an ongoing process that I suppose
The hope is that we'll see a rebound in manufacturing.
It seems to have been closely associated
with the sort of energy costs shock that we saw in 2022.
Thanks Peter.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:05:30
Welcome to the last question now to Sarah for time purposes.
Yeah, so just I think it's really interesting
to hear Jane and Richard your sort of comments
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:05:40
about inequalities and how we can tackle that.
And I know that in all of the five constituent
local authorities, as well as within the combined authority,
there's a real drive, I think, to reduce inequalities
and to increase equity amongst the population
of West Yorkshire.
And that's really good for everyone.
It's really good for people,
but it's really good for business as well.
It all feeds into each other.
And I think it's really interesting,
that sort of inclusive economy.
I mean, Felix has that in his title.
We have an inclusive economy strategy in Colvedale as well.
and it's about making sure that everyone's included,
the economy works for everyone
and everyone's included in it.
And I think it's really interesting
that the new sort of get Britain working stuff
very much includes health
and that sort of disparity is sort of
trying to be addressed.
But for me, it's great to see the sort of transport
sort of massive down there in the corner.
But, because I think for me,
public transport is such an amazingly important
way of helping to deliver that because I think it can help with child health in terms of
fumes and emissions because I think the Royal College of Pediatricians said that's one of
the biggest areas of health concern for young people and if we can get health for children
better then that's going to have a knock on effect all the way through people's life course
into the future because what we do now isn't about what we do today and what we do for
I think that's a really important part of the issue.
It's about what we do for 10, 20, 30 years' time as well, isn't it?
So I just want to really big up sort of public transport and also the voluntary sector.
And that's also really, really important in terms of delivering a lot of those sort of
skills and training and getting people back into economic activity, because the more people
we have in economic activity, then we get more tax and, you know, people pay council
tax and all of those sort of things.
So I think that that's from the council side of things, the local authority side of things,
is very much is a very strong sort of part of making sure that that all marries together
with the business side. Thanks Sarah and I guess it's worth noting that the mayor's
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:07:46
challenge this year which has substantial sort of opportunity in terms
of cash for businesses or individuals to come up with ideas that are then taken
forward is all around healthy outcomes. So there's a business link to
something that's around innovation and when we talk about innovation I think
Peter, it might be worth thinking about R &D tax credits.
Our region is disproportionately numbered in SMEs,
so the fact that those have been withdrawn in effect,
or certainly dumbed down a lot,
might affect those figures going forward.
The other thing I think we might want to pick up
is crime against business,
because there's crime against individuals there,
but there is a lot more crime in business at the moment,
unfortunately, and I think we might want to just keep an eye
on that as the business board too.
And on that note, which is those are two little minor things compared to child poverty and
health inequality, I think it's a good place to move on and talk about the local growth
plan.
As you know, we've worked on this.
You've all helped co -create it.
Lots of businesses in this region have helped co -create that local growth plan which has
been launched.
There's now more work to do on specific action plans.
But for a very quick update, Ruth, I'll come over to you so that we keep everybody on board
Ruth Davidson - 1:09:10
with what the latest is. Thank you chair. So I will take the report as read and note what Mandy has already said about the board being closely involved in the development of the plan and therefore that you're all well versed on the background to the development of it. So the report is to provide you with an update on activity and government engagement on the West Yorkshire local growth plan since it was published in December last year. So the context is obviously in December last year,
year, government also published the English Devolution White Paper and in that document
confirmation was received that Mayoral Strategic Authorities will have a statutory requirement to

9 Local Growth Plan

produce a local growth plan. So since those dates in December, this organisation and us as a
partnership have continued to drive delivery against the local growth plan in the following
ways. So we've agreed some shared local growth plan priorities with government to ensure that
West Yorkshire's Local Growth Plan holds weight and also guides government's policy and corrals meaningful action
against the things that we have come together to agree.
So the West Yorkshire shared priorities are derived from the Local Growth Plan and the set out in the appendix to the paper that you have before you today.
So in summary, the three things that we've agreed are improved public transport in the corridors of opportunity,
increased housing and employment density within the corridors of opportunity and
transforming the skills base particularly through technical qualifications.
So I would say that broadly we would split what we've been doing since
December into two key areas. So one is the significant liaison that's been
happening with government that has taken place around some key things. So firstly
we've been evidence in West Yorkshire needs in terms of the spending review to
meet the intent that's set out in the local growth plan and we've been using the shared
priorities to leverage those conversations. We've also been trying to convince government
that the guidance around statutory local growth plans shouldn't curtail our local knowledge
and strategic imperative around what is going to work best for West Yorkshire. We have also
been looking at the scope and the process for integrated settlement. Obviously as you
although our implementation would start from March next year
and we've been discussing what will be in and out of scope for that financial package.
And we've also been trying to induce changes into the government's emerging industrial strategy
noting that some of the timetables around that have shifted to later this month.
Second set of activities about how we are putting into operation the local growth plan.
So again attached to the paper is an appendix which was the investment product produced for UK Reef to start to establish the investment propositions for West Yorkshire.
Recognising with this board that work is going to be needed to progress that into a full investment pipeline over the coming year.
What we also have, I think you have a separate paper on this, is the work that's been taking place around the development of the cluster action plans.
and I know my colleague Sarah Bounds is going to discuss that shortly.
Also the board will note that as an organisation we took through our corporate plan that really
set out how we were going to drive activity forward in the next short term period of this
mayoral term but with a particular focus on activity in the year ahead.
So in summary chair, there's a real impetus towards starting to deliver against the ambition
and the outcomes we have established in the West Yorkshire plan and the paper is intended
to clearly start to evidence that track.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:12:58
Thanks very much, Rose. Has anybody got any comments on the growth plan?
Barney?
Yeah, I think it's interesting this following on from the last item and what the last item
Beckie Hart (Business Representative) - 1:13:09
highlighted was some of the gaps in the economy in West Yorkshire and a lot of the talk with
the government. I think it's really interesting that you said that we're looking at how you
can influence the government's thinking on strategic growth plans because a lot of the
talk from the government is about focusing on what we do well and actually what we just
had a conversation about is what the gaps are. And if we're going to look at inclusive
growth, we're going to look at inequalities, actually doing what we're doing now, we're
doing it better might not be the solution. So I think it's really important that we do
keep our mind open to what we're not doing well.
If business density is too low, then we
might need to think about that, that the government isn't
asking us to focus on it.
So I think it's really important that we stick to our guns
on that as far as possible, and actually using the intelligence
we've just been shared with us to actually inform
not just how we support the good things we do,
but actually start to fill some of the gaps of the things
we're not doing very well in West Yorkshire.
That's a really good point, Barney. Is that something, James, that you look at in the
Economy Committee as well? Yes.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:14:18
Good. Yes.
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 1:14:23
Oh, that's my sort of answer. So if you'll get us back on time, perfect. So if that's
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:14:31
the case, then I'll move on because it is linked to the next section, which is what
we focus on Barney.
And one of the things we will be focusing on
without throwing the baby out with the bathwater
is I think what you're saying,
is the sectors and the clusters
that we've already highlighted as opportunities for growth.
So Sarah, should I come to you on this first?
Thank you.
So one of the priorities within the local growth plan
Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:14:58
is around unlocking growth in our priority sectors.
It's one priority.
So in order to progress that,
we are developing cluster actions plans at the minute.

10 Sector & International Update

And these are going to set out the key barriers to growth for these clusters,
areas of opportunity, and importantly what we're going to do to drive growth
to increase start -ups, scale -ups, and get more businesses located here
and bringing that investment in in these priority sectors.
These are going to wrap around that activity to support the growth of these clusters,
including international activity and skill support,
and the whole range of support to kind of turbocharge those sectors.
So this paper sets out our approach to developing these cluster action plans.
There are six priority sectors in the local growth plan.
Just as a reminder, financial and professional services, digital, creative, health and life
sciences, advanced manufacturing and green economy.
So in developing these, working across a range of stakeholders to ensure the challenges and
the solutions are right and we're really going to be able to have an impact through these
cluster action plans.
We're going to be sharing drafts with these as these further develop through the various
engagement mechanisms that we've got in place.
We've also been plugging into the various expertise
that's out there and good practice.
So the CBI cluster playbook,
working with universities on cluster development
and what good looks like in terms of developing clusters,
learning from experience of things like space of Yorkshire
and various other activity that's been underway previously.
So in parallel, as Ruth alluded to,
we've been talking to, we've been engaging closely
with government on the development of the industrial strategy
and associated sector plans.
and we've been trying to influence these as much as we can to make sure that the key priority sectors in West Yorkshire are
recognized at a national level and are recognized for the strengths that they've got to drive that kind of national national agenda and shift the
dial nationally and we're confident that government are going to acknowledge
when the sector plans are published at the end of the month
and we've got some key strengths in a number of these including financial professional services creative and health and life sciences.
As these are developing with stakeholders at the minute, we are considering how we maintain
engagement in these as we move into implementation, including the role of the business board and
various other groups to make sure we've got that cluster development approach really firmed
up and we are keeping in check our activity and what we're doing to drive forward these
sectors and clusters.
So the great work of the health tech cluster is a really good example of a group that's
already in existence, already working together to drive forward that cluster, how can we
build on that, learn from the good practice that's been underway there and take that forward
for the rest of the cluster action plans and the work that we're developing.
So we'd welcome feedback on the approach we've set out in the paper at this stage and we'll
be bringing back the actual cluster action plans for further engagement when we've got
fully formed drafts to share.
Thank you Sarah.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:17:44
So this is a really key part of the growth plan and it's the bit that aligns with industrial
strategy has not lost on me that I think 10 out of the 12 regions in England, if I�ve
got the right figures there, have got advanced manufacturing as one of their key sectors.
So really what we need to think about is the niches within those clusters that will drive
growth, because advanced manufacturing crosses a huge area. Now, this doesn�t mean that
businesses that are not in those growth sectors have forgotten. There will still be business
support for all businesses in some guise. And that's what we're working through at the
moment. But driving those clusters is the way that
government wants us to work and we need to make sure we leverage as much opportunity
into this region as we can around them. And this board will work with the cluster
groups to make sure that the most businesses are represented in helping to deliver and
to co -create those sector plans.
So that all has to be joined together.
But has anybody got any comments on this approach?
Farrah, I know you've been working on manufacturing
and then can I come to Jane?
Thank you.
Yeah, it's the direction of travel, isn't it,
in the way that we are heading towards working
Annette Joseph - 1:19:01
in that sort of way.
Welcome it, we look forward to seeing how that translates
and let's see what comes of it.
The manufacturing sector, as was said previously,
you know, there is some decline in certain areas,
but there is some growth in quite a lot of them as well.
So I think, you know, that sort of broad brush approach
that perhaps manufacturing is in decline is probably not,
we need to make sure that we do look at the ones
where we're growing as well.
Mine's more about process, my question.
So, for instance, so I sit on the Climate
Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative) - 1:19:34
and Environment Committee,
and that will touch all of these clusters.
And I think at the moment, for instance, we had a really good engagement with the transport
committee to talk about how that affects climate change, et cetera.
We have good sharing.
But how do we matrixing these clusters with the current sort of committees to make sure
that, A, they're getting the support from each one as well as the business board.
I just can't see the pathway.
I just can't see how that will work.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:20:05
So I guess it's to do with horizontals and verticals and the business board itself.
So how the business board works with having the cluster representatives within this board
as well as the horizontal representatives, so obviously you pick up climate change, it
will be really important how we co -create that.
And that's the conversation that we need to have following this meeting about how we make
this work really well.
I think we've got all the right ingredients here.
It's just knitting, weaving,
and let's go back to the weaving network,
how we weave that together with our horizontals,
our weft and our warp, I think are the terminology,
aren't they, to make that really work together
and represent business within everything that we co -create.
So we need to make sure that businesses are represented
through all of those clusters
and then into this business board,
which is some of the work I've been doing
around recruitment.
Annette Joseph - 1:21:01
Just very quickly, just add to that, Richard's quite a lot further with the health cluster
so it would be really interesting to see, to get those cluster leads as it were in a
room and just learn from each other which would sort of address that point there as
well. Thanks, Baron. Richard?
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:21:15
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 1:21:22
Yeah, I've come into the cluster relatively late but it is fairly well established and
I think it works really well.
So you've got the combined authority,
which is leading on health, for example,
who joins the cluster.
I'm a private sector chair who chairs the cluster group.
And then it's made up of all those ecosystems.
But what I learn allows me to bring it back here,
if necessary, and I think it will become more formalized.
But I think if we can make sure that the cluster
is well represented and they're having their own
sort of more formal approaches,
and there's a strategy behind that,
which there is for West Yorkshire Health Tech cluster,
I think it really sort of works.
It works well, it's powerful.
I mean, the collaboration between the groups
in our meetings, they do meet out of our meetings,
of course they do, but actually what you see is
we join, we present latest updates,
we talk about what progress we've made,
but those conversations that spark,
then these additional collaborations
and ability to attract funding,
Innovate UK for example we got the launchpad funding for the region which
was it was only seven million pounds but it's another seven million pounds into
the region specifically on health tech and there's other things going on and I
mean we we come out of a two -hour meeting and there's so much activity
it's incredible and I think if we can sort of do that in a similar fashion I
think they've allowed it will add loads of value it's great it's a great forum
Thanks, Richard. I guess it allows the clusters to talk about sticking to the knitting, what
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:22:50
they're interested in, but then weave that into the other conversations that, you know,
the brass is down the back of the sofa, isn't it? It's in between those horizontals and
verticals. That's where we find opportunity. Sarah?
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:23:06
Yeah, and I think just sort of picking up on from that, I mean, I think, you know, overall
strategies is also thinking about where, so for example, in Caulderdale, and obviously
I represent Colvedale, some of the,
just sort of making sure that,
you say, oh, seven million pounds is not very much,
which it isn't on a combined authority scale.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.
Not at all, and I, no, you're right,
but actually, for some areas and some sectors,
actually, relatively small bits can be really meaningful,
and I suppose it's making sure that some of the areas,
you know, some of the areas, especially some of the sort of smaller areas or the smaller
manufacturers or the smaller sectors, get some of that targeted and specific support
as well, you know, because going back to our previous conversation, you know, it's great
when you've got really big things going on, but actually if we want to change people's
lives sometimes it's just those small local things as well that are really important.
And I think sort of just picking up, and I know this is about private sector, but I just
think about things like the visitor economy maybe and the voluntary and community sector
as well and how they weave through this whole, the whole picture as well and I think that's
really important for us in Colerdale because that's some of, we're great for the small
businesses, great for the start -ups and all of that sort of stuff and also for the sort
of voluntary and community sector stuff. That's some of our superpower but yeah, it's a brilliant,
brilliant approach, but just making sure that there's not...
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:24:39
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:24:41
Sarah, I couldn't agree with you more.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:24:42
I was at an LVET meeting last week, I think it was.
I think it is a fantastic opportunity
and having the James concert at the Peace Hall
absolutely drives economic growth just by creating places.
That place argument is really important to business
as well as to people.
Creating places that people want to be
not only support small businesses
in terms of what they can deliver,
but creates places that people attract talent which therefore helps business. So I think joining this approach is really key.
Asma Iqbal (West Yorkshire Business Board) - 1:25:18
Just a quick observation.
The weaving of the businesses and I come from the professional financial services aspect of it
and we're very interested to see what the draft looks like in terms of that sector.
But I wondered Mandy, you spoke about the mayor's council and the larger businesses. Is there an opportunity there for collaboration
when we talk about these clusters to kind of join and have a joined up approach to see
that smaller businesses are actually benefiting from the council that you're speaking to separately.
I'll come to you, Sarah, but I agree, Asma. Absolutely an opportunity for us to look at
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:25:55
this because of the clusters is absolutely right about small business, large businesses,
Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:25:59
financial professional services, the underpinning infrastructure that's needed to create that
growth across the various different clusters. So I think it's potentially all up for grabs
for a discussion around how we support these clusters and what they look like going forward.
And there will also be an opportunity for clusters to work together. So financial and
professional services might want to work with one of the clusters around access to finance.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:26:19
If you go back to that wheel of enterprise that we talked about, some of the clusters
will be able to help each other around some of those. Either they've done it well or they
actually provide a solution.
So I think we need to think about that, Richard.
Totally agree with large businesses.
Richard Paxman (Private Sector Representative) - 1:26:36
Well, we are trying to attract J &J to join the cluster.
It's typically a non -private sector group,
but actually we see the benefit in doing exactly that
because ultimately that's what will drive the growth
of the health tech cluster.
And then we also do try and work with professionals.
So there's some others by inviting them into talk as well.
So if there's updates or just listen,
and if there's a topic that might be appropriate
like financing, et cetera.
So I think again, there's ways and means of doing that.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:27:04
I think we're finished on that subject,
but it sounds really positive,
and it sounds like I think everyone in the room
was positive around moving in that direction,
which makes my life an awful lot easier
and hopefully gets us more importantly
the best outcome for the region.
So that's good news.
I'll move on now to item 10.
So, Julie, I think that's a verbal update really from DBT and it builds on really the
cluster work that we're doing and how we better work with DBT and the work that you're doing
to drive the best outcome for West Yorkshire.
Yes, thank you, Chair, and thank you everyone.
Julie Underwood - 1:27:39
Lovely to be here and there's been some great insights to take away, particularly Peter,
you talked about trade and what we can learn there, so we'd love to have another conversation
around that and Sarah, the work you're doing.
And when various colleagues have mentioned working with government, I'm sure, and I hope
that's with some of our colleagues that are supporting the local growth plans and how
we develop that and the enhanced trade partnership work we're doing as well.
But just to touch on a couple of key things, we've mentioned the industrial strategy, and
that's been delayed by a couple of weeks, spending review due tomorrow.
But what has also been launched this week, a bit of a soft launch, is the new Business
Growth Service.
And this is a key priority of the Secretary of State as part of the growth mission that
we knew that we needed to simplify the business support offer for business.
And today, a new website is being launched, business .gov .uk.
And this is a umbrella website if you like we had great .gov we had other access points
into business support and this is there to unify the business, the sort of core business
support delivered by government, local delivery as well such as growth hubs under this one
banner.
So that's been launched today, business .gov .uk I think it's the first time we've been able
to have a website address that is purely business
and not sort of, you know, slash something else.
So I would, you know, I hope that we're working together.
I think we are with Growth Hubs, Sarah and your team,
but feedback on the website would be really, really good.
The sort of what we've, how we've set it out,
it's launched today.
It's very much an umbrella of business .good .uk,
but leads into the Growth Hubs in the locality.
is locally led. It's not there to, if you like, replicate what we've already got, which
is working really well, but to bring everything together in one place. So that's domestic
support, international support, investment, and we're looking at probably a 12 -month period
where that would be just continually iterated and improved so we can ensure we've got everything
that needs to be in there in that sort of one focal point.
And there will be some induction sessions as well
that we'll put out through colleagues in the growth hub
and local business support.
So that's just really to sort of reinforce that today.
It's just been launched and it is all about simplifying
access to business support for businesses.
So really keen to hear feedback on that as it progresses.
and then also to touch on the work that we've been doing across the north, but now we've
really sort of developed it in West Yorkshire, our enhanced trade partnership. And this was
sort of from a very operational perspective, I think as DBT providing international support,
we know our growth hubs provide that domestic support, and we have other partners as well.
I know, Martin, you're involved, you've got Innovate UK.
And in the locality, how do we bring people together
who all really have one clear ambition?
And that's how can we support businesses
and how can we make them grow
and therefore improve our local economies?
And how can we work collectively to do that?
So we've sort of termed it as an enhanced trade partnership.
We bring our partners together.
We look at customer journeys.
We look at ways of sharing data
So that we know which service a business is relevant,
what's the most relevant at any given point.
So that's now starting, we're getting some traction
with the work stream on the customer journey
and also looking at data as well.
So that's a very practical way that we're looking to work
as colleagues across and partners across West Yorkshire
in how we sort of find the businesses that need our help
and what that best source is.
So that's a very practical operational route
and then we've got the business growth service
that has been launched as well.
So I think there's lots happening in this space
and it does all, I think you get the sense
that things are coming together.
I think everybody's trying to work on the right things.
We've got the national perspective, the local perspective,
all the development around growth plans and cluster work,
looking at our international opportunities,
working with the data that you have,
where are we strong in sectors,
where are the great best opportunities in markets,
and how we can support different initiatives around that.
So I think the key messages from me
is the business growth service,
how can we make that a really brilliant product
for businesses, continue to grow it,
continue to iterate it,
and develop our enhanced trade partnership work.
Thanks, Julie.
Is anybody got any questions for Julie?
So the umbrella website that you have got, business .gov .uk, is that different to the
one that the combined authority has?
It is.
It is.
But there are links.
Yes.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:33:11
There are links and the way that we want to work going forward with the new website is
that we start to link all of the opportunities into our website.
So rather than trying to step in and recreate things,
we link to the chambers, to DBT, to everyone else
so that we have a connected ecosystem, which
means that wherever you do look in,
you end up at the right place for you, for your business.
Yeah, it's very much like that.
It's perhaps not there yet, but because you've got that,
Julie Underwood - 1:33:41
You've already got your if you like set up here. Yeah, so the business dot gov dot UK
Would automatically direct businesses to that. This is on your in your area
You've already got this great resource and this branded is like a co -branding element to that
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 1:34:05
Thank you, I think you saw highlighted one of the dangers here of
of mission creep and the fact it's getting more.
We've spent a long while,
Sarah and Felix have spent many months
working on speaking to us all about the confusion
that businesses have been accessing,
publicly funded business support in particular.
But we are all working on this together
to try and make sure that that confusion
doesn't exist here when you've got different brands up.

11 Department for Business & Trade Update (Verbal)

So if you think from this perspective,
now what's this one called?
the business growth service and we've got the business growth advisors and they mean
different things. If it's confusing for us in this room, it's confusing for businesses.
So we all want to make sure that we're working together to make sure that that roots, that
access point for businesses is as simple as possible.
So whilst that conversation was going on, Ben just tested it out and it does actually
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:34:59
mention the growth hub, it does actually mention the chambers, so it's great because it is
connecting the ecosystem and we intend to reflect that
within our website going backwards.
There's nothing like a taste test, is there?
So well done, Ben, and it's great to see that that is working.
I did go online.
We've been doing some testing as well with our sort of
front -facing, our business -facing teams on the handbook
to make sure it all makes sense.
So there will be developments.
Speaking as a business, it's really hard to find your way
through the labyrinth.
It's also really hard to even find the labyrinth in the first place.
And so I think that will be the next challenge.
So when we talked about the comms earlier, being able to engage with, I think we're engaging
with about 10 ,000 businesses at the moment, about 100 ,000, how we increase that engagement
and then direct them to really good quality information across the ecosystem is important.
So all of this is starting to join together.
the new website hopefully will accelerate that further and faster so we get the right outcomes.
Thank you very much Julie. I'll move on to the almost penultimate point.

12 West Yorkshire Investments (Verbal)

So we're running almost on time. I'm going to come to Simon, which is really about the key infrastructure projects,
which we've alluded to all the way through this conversation today.
It's an exciting time to be in West Yorkshire. There's no doubt about it.
We've got our ambitious local growth plan.
It talks about corridors of opportunity.
It talks about high growth sectors and clusters.
It talks about thriving places.
And underpinning all of that,
it talks about our connectivity ambitions.
And so I think Simon, over to you to take us through
the connectivity bit I think of that
in terms of the significant investment in the region.
Thank you very much.
And as was referred to before,
Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:36:53
welcome to transport corner now. So what I'd like to do over the next few minutes is
two things actually. One, just spend a little bit of time just updating on the
work to achieve those sorts of transport outcomes that we've been talking about
throughout the meeting
but also
At least as it as importantly to give the opportunity for you to
Meet a new transport leadership team here in West Yorkshire as well and colleagues will spend a few minutes
Talking to specific aspects of the update as an opportunity to
introduce themselves and
There are a couple of opening slides
that address our agenda for Thrive in Places.
So why is the transport guy talking about Thrive in Places?
Because actually that's where we want to start
in terms of ensuring that we've got
the right strategic approach to bring in forward
our connectivity plans for West Yorkshire.
So all of the initiatives that we are looking
to both deliver and also bring forward
through our forthcoming local transport plan
are all grounded in a place -based strategy,
which is looking to really support
and where appropriate deliver those dynamic thriving places
that we know are an absolute fundamental
in terms of achieving our triple bottom line objectives for West Yorkshire.
So we know that thriving places are the places that help to deliver the agglomeration benefits
that Ben referred to before and therefore are fundamental in terms of our economic outcomes.
thriving places mean that we are bringing forward
more dynamic places for our communities to grow
and develop in as well, which is an absolute fundamental
to the social policy, to the social equity outcomes
that we're pursuing as West Yorkshire.
And if we are able to, in particular,
connect those places well through sustainable transport if we're able to
exploit to positive fact that the green assets as well in our places then of
course our thriving places can make a major contribution to our sustainability
and broader environmental objectives and of course with access to housing still
presenting that persistent barrier to growth, prosperity and opportunity.
We see the scope for us to really kickstart a step change in delivery by
ensuring that we've got this integrated strategic approach across connectivity
and land use planning and land use development. And of course strong
connectivity is also crucial to support the development of commercial premises
in our key locations and of course our ability to be able to manage the
challenge of congestion in a dense economic area like West Yorkshire
through the right travel choices then provides the opportunity for us to be
able to exploit the highway network that we have the best effect to support
businesses from a logistics perspective and that really kind of takes us into
the corridors of opportunity approach which is kind of laid at the heart of
the local growth plan agenda that we've been bringing forward through the first
six months of 2025 in particular challenging ourselves throughout to
ensure that there's a really strong strategic fit between our spatial
priorities and either current or future connectivity and I think the corridors
approach that we brought forward has really helped us to articulate that. So
that then takes us on to the transport agenda itself. Over the next few months
we will be bringing forward in July for consultation a draft statutory
local transport plan for West Yorkshire and it takes that approach that
philosophy that I talked about before and then looks at how therefore can we
best focus our transport policies our transport investment to boost
productivity to enable inclusive growth to tackle both climate emergency and
wider impacts of transport, particularly on the health and wellbeing of our communities.
And if we can get this right, then we can genuinely use transport as a driver for growth.
And transport is already a driver for growth in this conurbation.
I think that in itself is a very important issue for us to not lose sight of, as Ben
referred to before.
It is the fact that this city centre here in Leeds, for example, is so well connected
is what in large part helps Leeds to be the economic entity that it is.
but if we also look at where a number of our housing markets are most flourishing,
they are increasingly along those corridors well connected by our railway lines.
So we know that there is a positive response economically
if we can bring forward the right transport solutions.
And that really kind of lies at the heart of our approach to transport for growth.
And of course fundamental to all of that,
and I think it helps to address Barney's point is
we have to ensure that we're able to bring forward
a local transport network in West Yorkshire
that is genuinely integrated
because that's how we can then really start to support
that level of economic mobility around the conurbation
that we want to be able to achieve.
If you go back to the state of the city region report
before one of the things that it compares is access by a bus trip compared
to access by a car trip from our more deprived communities where I want us to
be over the next few years is to look at access across an integrated transport
system because of course what the car gives you is access in every given
direction and we need to be able to bring forward an integrated transport
system that can best address that and that can ensure that those best customer
standards that we do see on parts of our transport network but not consistently
at the moment become consistent and that really is what the Weaver network is all
about. I'm not going to dwell on email because I've heard enough word play
around the word Weaver for one day, thank you very much. And what we've set out on
On the diagram that shows the parts of the system, is that really important demand that
integration then makes on all parts of the transport system?
So whether it's the approaches that we will be bringing forward through bus franchising,
whether it's what we're looking to achieve working with government around the introduction
of Great British Rail and looking to the longer strategic term, those investment priorities
that we've set out with Yorkshire Partners through the White Rose Rail Agreement, our approach to mass transit,
but also our approach to how we make good use of our highway system at all.
All needs to drive towards a set of continuous integration outcomes.
I'm now going to pass across to colleagues who I'll leave to introduce themselves as we work along the road.
Just to give a little bit more of a detailed updates on our work around mass transit bus franchising and also our
capital investment program
Thanks, Simon. Can I just ask everybody should be conscious of time?
Thanks. No problem with that. Thank you chair and
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:46:16
Mr Mike Birch - 1:46:20
So just in way of an update around the progress of phase one of mass transit, which is obviously the leads in Bradford lines
Work has continued at incredible pace and continues to do so since the completion of
the consultation exercise last September, for which we saw over 5 ,000 individual responses
and over 70 % support across both routes.
So at this stage, overwhelming public and business support for what we're trying to
achieve.
Work has continued since then as we develop the value for money case with a view to feeding
that into what will be the strategic outline case to go to DFT to start the funding process.
At the same time, we work with district partners and key stakeholders to try and arrive at
a preferred candidate option, which is technical jargon for the preferred route that the trauma
system will take in phase one, with a view that we will then re -engage the public later
this year through a series of one -to -one engagements with affected parties and
then public consultation in 2026 all ultimately working towards the
submission of a Transport and Work Act application in 27 which will then
through that process grants us permission to commence the construction
of the tram and we will be working to a program to achieve space in the ground
early in 2020 out. At which point I will pass to Tim.
Thank you chair. So just a brief overview on where we are at with bus franchising.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:47:52
So people see on the slides we're very much in the heart of the getting
contracting right phase so we've been doing a huge amount of work over the
last few months building the framework of the policies and strategies to define
our contracts when they go out and we'll be issuing tenders in October of this
year for those first phase of contracts.
And those strategies very much define the things
like what we do with depots, what we're doing with fleet,
but also in terms of the service standards
that we're providing to passengers.
So the customer service standards that we're building
to those contracts and the targets
and the performance management regime
that we'll be expecting operators to comply with.
Through that process, we also absolutely have to get
the market engagement right, and today we've had
really strong market engagement.
We need strength and depth in our operators,
is an incredible competition through that process.
We had a session only in this room yesterday
and we had about 40 operator representatives
come to that, new and existing within the region.
So again, we've got a lot of interested parties
in operating in West Yorkshire into the future.
We will, as I said, we'll be issuing
the first hand of those tenders in October of this year
and then we'll go into this kind of the next cycle
of the preparing for launch phase.
That will do two things simultaneously.
first evaluate that first round of tenders but also allows to then do that same process
for rounds two and three with contracts ultimately going live both in early and late 2028 as
well, first contracts in March of 2027.
That will also require us to make sure at the same time that we build our capabilities
within the command authority, so improving our customer service offer, getting the operators
right, purchasing vehicles, buying depots, all of the things that we need to be ready.
So there's a lot of cyclical activity that will go through that phase and build our strengths through that process
I guess probably the last thing that is really important to remember is you will get to that process of having all all of the
services or you know the vast majority of services
Franchised by the end of 2028, but that isn't the end of this process
You know
That's just a starting point for this for them to us iterate forwards
started refining services, improving the way that we do things from there on in.
And I always come back to my reference point in this which is you know there
are already 120 million journeys taking place on the bus network in West
Yorkshire every year. You know our ambition is to grow that and that is you
know it makes a huge contribution towards the regional economy so it's
really important we build on the capabilities that we've always got. To
which I will pass to Simon. Thank you very much. So to complete the trio just to give you a
Simon Pope, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:50:26
bit of an update on our wider transport capital programme. So our current capital programme
is worth about £2 billion to give it some scale. We're delivering that through a host
of different funding mechanisms, some of which like the transport fund have been around for
around 10 years, some of which are more recent, so the City of Regent's sustainable transport
settlement for example is a five year funding programme that runs to March 2027. That March
2027 date is quite key for us because that's when a lot of our existing funding arrangements
that's come to an end. So hence the significance of last week's funding announcement from government
that Ben highlighted at the start of this meeting. That really gives us certainty that
we've got continued funding available to continue investing in our transport priorities from
2027 onwards. To give you an idea of the sorts of things we're investing at the moment, it
won't come as a surprise that we're seeking to try and secure sustainable and inclusive
growth linked to our local growth plan ambitions. So that involves investing in things like
bus and cycle corridors to improve bus and cycle connectivity. We're currently developing
proposals for three new and improved bus stations building on the success of the
Halifax bus station that was delivered last year. We have various proposals for
new rail stations in various stages of development and for different locations
and we're also improving access arrangements and parking ride
facilities at other rail station locations. We have an extensive highway maintenance
program, investment in EV charging infrastructure across the region and
various smaller scale interventions looking at safer roads and shared
transport hubs. We're also investing heavily in the assets the command
authority is going to need to own to deliver bus franchising, so I'm talking
about things like depots and extensive zero emission bus fleet. We're currently in an
over programming position, by that I mean we're developing more schemes than we
currently have funding available to deliver. We see that as an opportunity.
Firstly it gives us the opportunity to guarantee spend to government by the
funding end date, substituting schemes if necessary if we encounter delays during
delivery. It also means that we have to hit the ground running in the next
funding period by having shovel ready schemes ready to reach site. The 2 .1
billion pounds that was confirmed by government last week, just to give you an
idea, roughly half of that will be going towards development and early stage
delivery of our mass transit program. The remaining half will be going towards our
wider transport capital program. We're obviously determining what we're looking
to direct that investment towards at the moment linked to our local transport
plan process that Simon has alluded to. It won't come as a surprise that a key priority
for us is focusing that investment to ensure that franchising is a success by making the
bus network more efficient and reliable and complementing mass transit, so the benefits
of transport investment reach all parts of the region.
Finally, we're also looking to ensure that investment levers maximum returns by aligning
transport regeneration and housing priorities to try and unlock growth opportunities and
ultimately increase business competence to invest.
Thank you very much.
I think it's really important that the business community
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:53:21
galvanize support for this program.
It's great to see that Leeds United have been promoted
to the premiership and every time somebody says to me,
including my husband, well we've been here before,
I always remind him that he never lost faith
in Leeds United being promoted and I'm not losing faith
in mass transit finally being delivered.
but all of that requires the people and the businesses in West Yorkshire to advocate for
this constantly because it's going to be a long journey and we don't want to lose faith
at any point in that time, especially during the tricky points that governments have or
the tricky points that we have. So I think that's part of our role, but before we draw
that to a close, has anybody got any questions? Natalie?
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 1:54:12
Just pop that on. Just a quick one. Brilliant progress on the transport side. But it does
come back down to the regeneration. So we've seen there in the UK reef link, 51 projects
which could become a reality. We always talk about the spades in the ground, but whose
spades are going in the ground? And there's clearly a massive opportunity for us to get
behind construction. We're seeing it's growing. But even with the growth, and I know those
figures are lagonomics again, the growth isn't aligning with the opportunity and how much
construction we could have in this region. So, again, we're talking 2027, 2028, how do
we align that cluster to really power the region so that those jobs are here and they're
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:55:06
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 1:55:07
So just a kind of observation as to how we pull it all together.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:55:10
It's a really interesting point because it's what I brought up with Felix this morning
around the clusters and whether there is an opportunity to create a group around construction
and maybe civil engineering on this very point.
We're fortunate that I think we are the only place in the country to have a specialist
college for construction in Leeds, College of Building, but it's a really, really valid
point.
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 1:55:39
Yeah, so I think just coming back to that and we were looking at the growth plan and
some of those clusters. I know construction's kind of wrapped up in one, but there really
must be an opportunity there to galvanise something. We all know the areas which can
be regenerated. We know the plans with transport but how do we make sure we
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:56:03
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 1:56:05
deliver that locally? And I believe we can with the time scales. Simon. Thank you.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:56:07
So absolutely there is a very in -depth piece of work that's underway at the
moment that combines the two local authorities and a series of departments
inside the combined authority in addition to the bomb transport
MH CLG and also Treasury which is looking to bring forward a growth prospectus
for the mass transit corridors because
There is no doubt that if well communicated and well organized
There is a step change in the pace of delivery
that can take place in response to mass transit systems and also the density of
development
We've seen it by way of example
If you would take the metrolink corridors in Greater Manchester through Salter Keys
And also Trafford Park if we look at the corridor to lead south in particular. There's an awful lot of similar characteristics
so there's the ability for us to
drive forward an investment prospectus which is infrastructure led which we
know from all the UK cities the market is actually well positioned to respond
to if we signal in the right way that growth prospectus is also looking to
with Felix's colleagues work with skills providers and also the college sector as
well because there's a direct Keynesian benefit to be had in spending two and a half billion
pounds here on a light rail system. So we're looking to ensure that opportunities are built
into local curricula for us to be able to secure local skills into the program.
Jane Atkinson, Deputy Chair - 1:58:03
And just coming back to UKRE, you know, when you look at the list of people who are here
in the region and those fringe events, there must be something there that we can trigger
through people who come, who sponsor, but the other groups as well, you know, there's
women in architecture, women in construction, talking about women because that was the key
Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative) - 1:58:29
kind of areas which stood out to me and I think if we start to look at what that brings
to the region and the opportunity and align everything, there must be something here which
could be significant as long as we align every single strand ready for those 20, 27, 2028
targets.
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:58:47
Thanks, Leslie. This is a very well made point. Sharon, just briefly because then I'm going
to draw us to a close.
Of course. No, this is a great project and I love the idea of mass transit and I think
I'm not sure if the Mayor would appreciate this if you call it smart transit. The reason
I'm saying this is we are living in the age of AI and I work with
London underground and various bus projects in the past
The problem most of the bus providers and councils faces. We don't have access to the data. Everyone brings different
proprietary technology and
sometimes then we get into a lock situation where
We can't innovate further
So learning from the past and from other mistakes from other tram systems that's been put in place
Mr Sherin Mathew (Private Sector Representative) - 1:59:36
Can we come up with something a bit more smarter proactive and intelligent which?
Could add more efficiency and productivity as well
Mandy Ridyard (Chair) - 1:59:46
No, and I'll let you pick that up afterwards with with transport corner if that's okay
or as I like to call them, the eager weavers.
But on that note, I'll just summarize today.
There is some homework.
So first of all, we've got a fantastic platform,
which we've been working on over the last year.
We're just about to move forward into the next phase,
which is construction of how we deliver that growth plan,
how we work with our clusters,
and how we use the infrastructure investments around us
to really wrap up investment in this region
and deliver better metrics and improve metrics again.
Things for everybody in this room to be aware of
are the Black Business Award,
so we'll put that on the summary email
that comes out to use to promote,
and the DBT Growth Service connection to that,
so you can have a look at it yourself.
Don't forget, if you're going to CLIMB,
to let us know so we can get a briefing to you.
We're looking at narratives around health tech
and the region of creativity and learning,
so help with that will be greatly received.
The design of the website,
so anybody that wants to get involved,
please put your hands up afterwards
to say that you're interested.
And also the Fair Work Charter,
how we get that driven more broadly
across more businesses will be key
to improving things within the region for all.
And then without forgetting, we need to galvanize support,
but this isn't a sprint, this is a marathon,
So it's a constant galvanization over the next few years to help Simon and the team
deliver what we need in this region.
So thank you for coming today.
I know it's been a bit of a marathon in the meeting.
And the next meeting we will have dates for after the Combined Authority meeting, but
I will make sure they're out in your diary for a year.
One last thing from me, unless somebody comes and tells me any differently, we'll continue
to have them in the afternoons.
but if that's a problem for anyone, let me know.
We'll see if we can find a way through.
It's always difficult, I'm sure you'll appreciate.
But thank you for the last year,
and looking forward to the next meeting.
Thank you.

14 Date of Next Meeting

14 Date of Next Meeting

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Mr Mike Birch
West Yorkshire Combined Authority
View profile Mr Mike Birch