Mayor's View: The new Prime Minister must help us get Peterborough thriving

This week Andy Burnham became our new Prime Minister. Say what you like about how this has played out – and there is plenty to say – but this is a man who made the regional Mayor matter, writes Combined Authority Mayor Paul Bristow.  

As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham used his local powers to bring in bus franchising, attract business investment and boost local skills.  Whether this as brilliant as he would have us believe - he has made a difference. 

He knows, better than anyone who's ever walked into Downing Street, that places thrive when local leaders get the tools to deliver. It was no surprise, then, that he sees getting power out of Whitehall and into the regions as critical to fixing this country’s many problems. We’re still far too centralised.   

Peterborough and Cambridgeshire needs that same trust to get on with the job of fixing our infrastructure, creating jobs and opportunity, and growing our economy.  

Many readers will know that I want to get the regeneration of this city moving. When Peterborough was transformed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it was because a Development Corporation was set up to get on with it.  

It’s only now, with devolution and the Combined Authority, that things are happening again.  We've just set up a new Growth Board bringing together the Combined Authority, city council, Homes England and myself as Mayor to bring together over 30 investment sites around a single vision for the city centre’s revival.   

It's a serious step towards my plan for a Mayoral Development Corporation, which would give the powers to make it happen more quickly.  

As Mayor and as a Combined Authority, we do have some devolved powers, but not at the level that has allowed Manchester, for example, to have a greater influence on its own future. He also had billions more to spend on transport than we do because under the last Mayor we were excluded without a whimper from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. The Prime Minister could put that right at a stroke of a pen. 

I’ve also formally applied for Established Mayoral Strategic Authority status for the Combined Authority. That would give us the top tier of devolution powers available to any English Mayor. It would mean more control over funding, and the right to ask government for further powers when we can prove local leaders get better results than Whitehall.  

We've done the work to earn it. We've passed our government gateway review, where we proved a track-record of delivery and unlocked £100 million of investment for the region. We've delivered ARU Peterborough, a university this city waited decades for. We're delivering the £65 million Station Quarter transformation right now.  

The Prime Minister knows that devolution is, at a practical level, a better way to help ordinary people get better buses, better jobs, better public services and better places to live. Peterborough deserves that same shot. We've got the ambition to triple the size of our economy through our Local Growth Plan, and what we need now is a government that trusts us to get on with it.  

So this is my message to the new Prime Minister: you've stood exactly where I'm standing and you know what it takes. Back Peterborough the way you'd have wanted Manchester backed when you were fighting for it.  

Give us the powers and, as Mayor, I’ll work with our partners to deliver the results.