WITH York's previous economic strategy taking the form of five ambitions, underpinned by four separate themes, which fed into 19 priority objectives, the key word for the succeeding strategy is simplicity.

In a review of the previous strategy, which ran from 2011 to 2015, York Without Walls (WoW), a partnership of public and private organisations seeking to improve the city, said it was "very unclear" what the most important things were.

It said the strategy's priorities covered almost anything which could be considered in an economic strategy, and on the whole were not specific to York’s particular challenges and opportunities.

Wow's strategy review claimed that while the previous priorities should be borne in mind, the more important thing is deciding what the fundamental core things ought to be.

That message was echoed when Phil Witcherley, head of policy at City of York Council, and Mark Alty, international business development manager at the council, presented an update on the forthcoming strategy to a recent meeting of business support and networking group York Professionals.

As a city with 8,000 businesses, and 106,000 residents in employment, as well as seven million visitors a year, and a GVA of £4.3 billion, the pair talked of York's many advantages, including excellent rail transport links, always being ranked as a desirable place to live, having consistently low unemployment figures, and boasting the highest proportion of degree educated people in the north.

However with advantages comes challenges. York's weaknesses were identified as being transport congestions, the historic nature of the city restricting infrastructure, an ageing population, and high levels of part time workers.

Mr Witcherley said addressing the weaknesses and promoting the advantages was what the strategy seeks to do, through engagement with businesses in the city.

He said: "This shouldn't been seen exclusively as a Council strategy, we are beyond that now. People don't want talking shops, they are keen to do stuff, and achieve things."

Mr Alty said: "There's lots of things going on in the city; lots of strengths and lots of challenges.

"We are convinced if we are to achieve our aspirations for York to be a place to do business, live, work and attract high quality jobs, we need real focus on the things that are most important.

"We are going through a process of refreshing York's economic strategy. We want to work with business to really refine our focus and look at the most important things."

Through consultations to date, early drafts of the economic strategy take the form of "things to fix", and "things to make York famous for".

Among the "things to fix" highlighted during the presentation were:

- making a tangible industrial shift towards higher value sectors

- unlocking the commercial and residential sites required for growth, with a focus on business accommodation

- stimulating a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship at every age

- easing congestion to major employment locations

The "things to make York famous for", were revealed as:

- an internationally renowned location for industrial biotech and agri-tech

- a leading creative city on the world stage

- a leading rail hub in every way

Cllr Keith Aspden, deputy leader of City of York Council with responsibility for Economic Development, said: "The council is working closely with businesses and key partners to support jobs and the local economy.

"The purpose of the York Economic Strategy is to help businesses and organisations in the city identify future challenges, priorities and opportunities.

"The work is being led by businesses for business and should be something all interested parties in the city are involved in creating and delivering.

"Earlier this year more than 50 key organisations and people in the city, including councillors from different groups, businesses of different sizes from across all major sectors, and skills providers came together to discuss the priorities for the strategy. We now need to bring together their ideas and expertise to decide the tangible actions we want to take here in York.

"Over the coming months, we will also be reviewing the aims and achievements of previous strategies, analysing their success and how they might fit into a refreshed strategy."