We want to welcome the new Mayor, David Skaith, into post and wish him and the administration he leads every success in the coming years.  We are hopeful that he will be a champion for the rural economy and the development of agritech in the region.

The new Mayor’s manifesto didn’t contain any specific reference to agritech, or to the farming sector which is so important to Yorkshire but we did find this picture of him back in March when he visited Bio Yorkshire at the University of York back in March.

He does talk about the need to attract business investment into the region as one of his five pledges, and as the agriculture and food sectors are so significant here we suspect that this will be high on his business development agenda.  We look forward to discussing this with him and presenting the Aiskew proposals at the earliest opportunity!

We wait to see how the Mayor will exercise his planning powers across the region, working with North Yorkshire Council, but hope that this too will provide a route to a faster recognition of the opportunities of the region.

Of course, Grow Yorkshire is already part of the Combined Authority, with a clear mandate to promote food and farming as vital sectors to the economy of North Yorkshire.  This should provide the vehicle for the Mayor and his administration to engage with us and the wider agritech sector to develop long-lasting and strategic projects for everyone’s benefit.