Tory candidate for North Yorkshire mayor vows to be 'unashamedly pro-business'

Keane Duncan, who currently serves as a councillor on North Yorkshire Council, will stand in the election in May after he was selected by local party members last week.

The 28-year-old from Malton is now seen by many as the favourite, as North Yorkshire is traditionally a Tory stronghold, but he said he is “taking nothing for granted”.

It comes after Labour’s 25-year-old candidate Keir Mather caused an upset in the Selby and Ainsty by-election this week, overturning a 20,137 majority to win by 4,161 votes.

Councillor Duncan believes he is the right person to lead York and North Yorkshire’s new combined authority and champion a region that’s home to around 800,000 people.

The mayor will be handed at least £540m over the next 30 years, as part of the current devolution deal, and granted powers to invest in transport, housing, and education.

Councillor Duncan said he is planning to create a “rural powerhouse” by ensuring the region becomes “a destination for growth”.

“We already have over 40,000 business here, 98 per cent are small businesses,” he said. “I want to be a place where they can grow and thrive, and a place that is attractive to new businesses and investment.

“We need to be unashamedly pro-business, on the side of those ready to create opportunity. I feel strongly we need to embrace every opportunity that comes our way.

“I think we haven’t always had that positive reputation, particularly around the City of York.”

He also promised to help North Yorkshire’s businesses “maximise production”, particularly those which provide vital supplies of food and energy to the UK.

Young people are leaving the region in droves, to find work and more affordable housing in other parts of the country, and the exodus costs the local economy around £1.5bn a year, according to the North Yorkshire’s Rural Commission.

But Councillor Duncan, a University of York graduate who works as a journalist for The Daily Star, said he wants to ensure “we have what the next generation needs”.

“We want to make sure we're attracting talent but also retaining talent, and we have highly skilled jobs and affordable homes,” he said.

“If we can work with Homes England and DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities), I think we can actually find some solutions to the barriers that prevent the delivery of homes in rural areas.

"But as mayor, I’ll make sure we're prioritising brownfield development.”

He added: “We have low productivity and that gap is widening. We also have lower than average wages.

"By delivering the tools for growth – that’s skills, homes, connectivity, we can turn this around.”

After being elected as a councillor at 20, he became the youngest council leader in the country in 2019 when he took charge of Ryedale District Council, aged 24.

“I have the scars of eight years of politics,” he said. “I know how difficult it is to deliver results.

“It’s very easy to make promises and pledges, it's much more difficult to actually deliver. So I'm coming into this role with my eyes wide open about the scale of the task.”

He currently serves as the council’s executive member for transportation and said the region needs its “fair share” of funding so long-awaited improvements can be delivered.

North Yorkshire missed out when the Government announced £8.8bn for sustainable transport projects in March and £1.1bn to improve bus services last year.

“We haven't got a penny of that. So I'll be fighting to make sure that in the future, we’re treated fairly,” he said.

He has vowed to upgrade the road network and ensure National Highways delivers plans to improve congestion on a six-mile stretch of the A64 in North Yorkshire, by upgrading and dualling the busy road.

His other priorities include improving digital connectivity across the region, ensuring more people have access to superfast broadband and 5G networks, and helping North Yorkshire Police crackdown on crime.