ECONOMIC priorities for York have been laid out after more than 60 representatives from city businesses and organisations met to discuss what needs to be done to boost investment and job creation.

The need to create high-value employment and increased average wages were highlighted as a key focus for the next Economic Strategy for York during a meeting of the city's Economic Partnership committee.

With the current strategy due to expire in December, more the 60 stakeholders attended the meeting, including large businesses such as Aviva, Nestle and Virgin Trains East Coast, medium-sized businesses including Omnicom and York Racecourse, and smaller businesses such as Acorn Finance as well as representation from the Federation of Small Businesses.

Discussions were held on what the top five economic priorities for the city for the next five years need to be.

Topics also included encouraging entrepreneurship, recruiting skilled people into employment, providing fit for purpose business and residential accommodation and supporting the evening economy.

The York Economic Partnership, which acts as an advisory board to City of York Council, will take the findings of the seminar forward to develop the strategy, which is due to be launched in Autumn.

Stirling Kimkeran, chief executive of Omnicom and chairman of the York Economic Partnership said: "This meeting has been the culmination of many discussions at the York Economic Partnership.

"This event has been a fantastic opportunity to concentrate our collective efforts on securing a sound economic future York.

"The difficult but realistic discussions that have happened will play a role in developing an economic strategy that will enable York businesses to work together to deliver the sustainable high-value growth that I believe is achievable for this city."