Mayoral money to support recovery from moor fire

Labour mayor of York and North Yorkshire, David Skaith, in the BBC Radio York studio

The mayor of York and North Yorkshire says he is looking at how his office can help nature recover from the Langdale Moor fire, support local businesses and help those on its front line.

Labour's David Skaith has been in the BBC Radio York studio for Message the Mayor, answering questions from listeners and presenter Joanita Musisi.

Other topics covered in the session include transport, housebuilding targets and a "tourism tax" for York.

Net Zero fund to help nature recover from fire

"The Local Resilience Forum, run by North Yorkshire Council, will be leading the recovery process. We will be stepping in to see where we can offer support as well.

"Environmental recovery, which we are already looking at - we have our Net Zero fund and we're looking at how we can use a portion of that to support things like peatland restoration and the replanting of trees.

"We're also looking at what business support we can provide as well, it's had a huge impact on tourism."

The fire - near Fylingdales - was first reported more than a month ago. Its cause is being investigated.

Call for York 'tourism tax'

The mayor says York has a "great opportunity" to introduce a tourism tax, or visitor levy, which are "commonplace" across Europe.

Currently, only voluntary levies can be invoked - as has happened in Liverpool - and government legislation would be needed to change that.

Skaith says: "It is an opportunity to bring in some much-needed funding to support our tourism and hospitality sector, really highlighting it, promoting it even further, and making York and North Yorkshire even bigger on the map.

"Things in government are slow unfortunately, but I can assure you we are pressing hard and all mayors are behind it.

"We all know how important it is to bring in that vital income, to not only support the sector, but also the vital local services for our communities that live here."

More than £7m to help 'unlock' homes

Skaith says the cost of houses in North Yorkshire was one of the main reasons he decided to stand in 2024's mayoral election.

He has recently signed a partnership with government agency Homes England, which is designed to speed up housebuilding by working more closely with owners of big sites, such as Network Rail and the Ministry of Defence.

"We have about 30,000 homes that have planning permission in York and North Yorkshire but that are just stuck. Now we have this plan with Homes England, we have an opportunity to unlock those.

"The first £12m we have spent has freed up about 1,200 homes. We've got another £7.3m from the government last week that will go into up to 600 more homes.

"They're moving forward. But now we have this partnership we can get homes that are stuck, for whatever reason, like the lack of an access road to open up that site.

"This partnership will unlock them."

'Pressing on' with more trains to Scarborough

The mayor is committed to pushing for twice-hourly Transpennine Express rail services between York and Scarborough, and says he is working closely with the government to achieve it.

He said: "That is pressing on really well. A lot of it - as I've said before - is the time it takes to train the drivers. We are on with it now.

"The process of training a driver can be anywhere between 12 and 18 months because it's such a high skilled, really difficult, really challenging job.

"Because we're starting from scratch on this we have to build the infrastructure around it and we have to train those drivers."

Prime minister 'is up to the job'

Skaith agreed it had been a "challenging few weeks" for the Labour government after the resignation of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and sacking of US ambassador Lord Mandelson.

"A big thing we have got to do is speak to communities and get that communication better. We are doing some good stuff but we're not communicating it well enough."

Asked if Sir Keir Starmer is up to the job, Skaith replied: "Yes he is up to the job. But we have got to do things better and get that communication with the public better.

"There is a void there where we have not been doing that well enough - and that's where that void gets filled with negativity."