North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith: Improving transport at coast is key

North Yorkshire's newly-elected mayor David Skaith promises to boost coastal communities

North Yorkshire's newly-elected mayor says improving transport links in coastal areas is a priority.

David Skaith also said more affordable homes needed to be built in coastal areas.

Speaking just after the results were announced on Friday, Mr Skaith said such areas had been "cut off for a long time".

He added: "We know we have great difficulties in transport connections."

Mr Skaith said: "We need to be investing on the coast, we need to be building affordable homes, and getting that connectivity so people can move between Scarborough and York, we need to make it joined up.

"We'll be working collectively and now we have this opportunity with York and North Yorkshire together, we'll be able to look at the whole region because that's how we are going to make the change we need."

The highly-contested election saw Labour win a 14,000 vote majority with 66,701 votes while Conservative Keane Duncan came second with 51,967 votes, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

There was an overall turnout of 29% out of 640,012 people who are registered to vote in York and North Yorkshire.

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