YORK needs to increase the amount of affordable city centre space available for start up and growing businesses by 20 per cent over the next five years according to a new report.

The recommendation comes from City of York Council's High Value Jobs Task Group, which was set up earlier this year to find cost effective ways to attract graduates and entrepreneurs to York to enable the employment of local people at higher than average wages.

As well as increasing affordable office space, the Task Group is recommending that the council supports an increase of five per cent in employment in professional, scientific and technical activities by 2030.

The Task Group's findings have been published in a report by the authority's assistant director of Governance and ICT Andrew Docherty, which is due to go before the Economic and City Development Overview and Scrutiny Committee today.

It said: "We have high employment in traditional low productivity areas such as hospitality, catering and retail, and we have low employment in the traditional high value areas such as insurance and pensions, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, chemicals and biochemistry.

"In regard to the steady supply of higher education graduates from York’s colleges and universities the Task Group were mindful of the lack of a critical mass of graduate jobs in the city. They noted that many who remain in the city after graduation take part-time or lower value jobs, which has a knock-on effect on York’s labour market.

"Changing the sectoral composition of York’s economy is fundamental to the ambition of improving its productivity and the value of jobs in the city. The decline in both is attributable to the decline of manufacturing jobs in the city from the 1990s.

"This bears directly on the report’s recommendations and setting a stretch target for the proportion of jobs in high value sectors such as professional, scientific and technical activities would measure directly the outcome the report is interested in."

The report also recommends that the council establishes a single point of contact for business advice to clearly signpost services, with named council support officers being made responsible for liaison with startup businesses.

It is also suggested that the council and its partners work to increase business-to-business mentoring, peer support and networking opportunities for small businesses.