Devolution could be key to bringing biotechnology to farming in Yorkshire say scientists and council leader

In a bid to achieving net zero food production, farming and land use, BioYorkshire will be working with farmers and food production industries to enable more productive and sustainable crop production and environmentally responsible land use.

Cost estimates for the scheme to run over the next 10 years are put at £170m and while the three organisations behind BioYorkshire have committed to encouraging and bringing in investment themselves, they are looking to central government to contribute a third of the financing.

Senior officials from BioYorkshire will also be making a case to a new mayor, who is set to oversee a new combined authorities York and North Yorkshire, to allocate spend.

The mayor, who is due to be elected in April 2024, is set to be responsible for administering £18m each year to restore and revitalise rural communities under a proposed devolution deal for York and North Yorkshire.

Coun Carl Les, is leader of North Yorkshire County Council, and due to assume the leadership of a new authority overseeing the whole of the county from April 1.

The county council and the seven district and borough authorities will merge to create the new North Yorkshire Council, paving the way for the long-awaited devolution deal.

Coun Les stressed farming is “hugely important” to North Yorkshire and its economy and heritage – but it is also keen to embrace new technology and the need for a carbon neutral way of working.

He said: “The rural economy in North Yorkshire is hugely important with farming or agriculture businesses. It is achieving a much greater status than it had in the past and it is a much more technical business now.

“I was just driving down the road today and my wife said: ‘Look at that piece of machinery.’ We both looked, it was so large and complicated and we had not got a clue what it did, but it was being operated by one person. Farmers are really embracing technology.

“Side by side is the visitor economy as well. Farming has diversified with campsites and bunk barns etc, but that is alongside the way that farmers have traditionally looked after the landscape which is part of the visitor economy because that is what people come to see, so it works hand in hand.”

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is part of the Government’s levelling up agenda with £2.6bn of new funding for local investment by March 2025, with all areas of the UK receiving an allocation from the fund via a funding formula rather than a competition.

Any allocation from this fund will be the responsibility of North Yorkshire County Council to administer at present but is due to, in turn, pass to the mayor of the new combined authority.

Coun Les said: “With us leaving the EU we have transitional funding and the UK Shared Priority Fund and these are going to be vitally important. It is all part and parcel of, and tied up with, devolution.

“We are signed up to being net zero, but carbon negative is the aspiration. I hope that we can get there, not only as a country but as a region. That is going to be hugely important. Devolution will help in as much as there is funding and decision-making.

“All I can say, it has worked in cities like Manchester and Liverpool, it has worked for the Tees Valley - I can’t believe that it won’t work for York and North Yorkshire.

“It is the biggest shake-up to local government and North Yorkshire since 1974. The biggest impact on us is going to be devolution because we start to control our destiny.”

BioYorkshire is aiming to create 4,000 highly skilled jobs, boost the national economy by over £1.4bn and reduce 2.8m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Devolution is a key policy of the Government, handing over decision-making powers to local political leaders and providing millions of pounds in funding to shape major policies and projects on a regional level.

A proposed 30-year devolution deal for York and North Yorkshire, with total funding of more than £540m, is due to lead to benefits ranging from new and better-paid jobs and improved transport links to more affordable housing.

The proposed deal was unveiled on August 1 last year, and the Government stipulated that a key requirement for devolution is for the two-tier system of local government in North Yorkshire, with the county council and seven district and borough authorities, to be replaced by a single unitary authority.

City of York Council will continue as a unitary authority to run in tandem with the new North Yorkshire Council, which launches on April 1.