West Yorkshire’s first-ever Manufacturing Task Force brings together representatives from manufacturing companies and alliances to assess the manufacturing landscape and identify opportunities to support the continued growth of the sector.
In November 2021, the Mayor of West Yorkshire set up West Yorkshire’s first-ever Manufacturing Task Force, bringing together fourteen representatives from manufacturing companies and alliances across the region to assess the manufacturing landscape and identify opportunities to support the continued growth of the sector. Task Forces are time-limited, expert-led bodies set up to identify solutions to a defined problem.
The Task Force will explore best practices and find solutions to immediate and future challenges including, the transition to net-zero, new trading relations and low productivity and efficiency levels, and develop an action plan with recommendations to help local businesses remain competitive.
The Mayor of West Yorkshire will sign off the action plan (expected late Spring 2022). The West Yorkshire Combined Authority will consider the findings to deliver future support for local manufacturing businesses in partnership with local partners and stakeholders.
Areas of focus for the action plan include, but are not limited to:
Manufacturing Task Force Recommendations Report July 2022.
Andrew Wright, Chair of the Task Force
Andrew Wright is also Chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Business, Economy and Innovation Committee and a member of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Board.
"A team of top manufacturers from across the region have got together with leaders from the West Yorkshire manufacturing alliances to generate exciting plans which will boost the strength and highlight the attractiveness of manufacturing business in the region. Manufacturing is buoyant, bouncing back hard as we come out of the pandemic. There has never been a better time to consider a job in this sector in Britain’s strongest and largest collection of world-class businesses."
Membership organisations
Tracy Dawson, Leeds Manufacturing Alliance
Nick Garthwaite, Bradford & Airedale Manufacturing Alliance
Tim Mee, Wakefield Manufacturing Forum
Martin Booth, Calderdale & Kirklees Manufacturing Alliance
Annette Hobson, Make UK
Business Representatives
Mandy Ridyard, Produmax Ltd
Fara Butt, The Shire Bed Company
Ruth Burns, Thornton & Ross Ltd
Ian Thurley, Siddall & Hilton Products
Fiona Conor, Trust Electric Heating Ltd
David Masters, OE Electrics Ltd
West Yorkshire is home to more manufacturing jobs than anywhere else in the North and I want us to do all that we can to take our world-class manufacturing sector forward.
Mayor of West Yorkshire
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