Our great city is a wonderful place to live, work and bring up a family. We proud Yorkshire folk are surrounded by beautiful countryside, with a historic city centre and a secure local economy.

Yet, our city is becoming increasing restricted with our transport infrastructure sadly outdated and struggling to keep pace with modern-day demand, particularly on the road.

An inefficient transport network not only slows down everyday tasks such as the school run, but it impacts seriously on the cost of doing business in York.

At present, many people see our transport system as a nuisance, but the reality is that the situation could get even worse, and at a quicker rate than we expect.

As a result I have started a working group which consists of representatives from the county council and City of York Council. However, the bulk of the group represents the many businesses which are so vital to our local economy and jobs.

My vision is for this group to work together and produce a list of recommendations for improvements to York’s transport infrastructure, copies of which will be delivered to Guildhall and Downing Street.

Yesterday, I was able to host the first of this group’s meetings. I was joined by the Federation of Small Businesses, the University of York, York Science City, Visit York, North Minster Business Park, Cellhire Plc and many other local business leaders to discuss a whole host of transport problems and priorities in York.

It was a really encouraging, cross-party, business-led discussion and we are following up with further round-table events later in the summer.

The plan is to raise the profile of funding options and transport priorities in York. Working together in a cross-city manner, I truly believe that we can deliver on this issue in the coming years.

• Like many York residents, I am continuing to bask in the glory of York City FC’s back-to-back Wembley victories. With promotion back to the Football League and the FA Trophy also in the bag, there is a real feel-good factor around the city and I would like to congratulate all at York City FC on what has been a tremendous and historic season for the club.

Away from the team’s success, the football club has also been at the centre of the recent debate over a new community stadium, which concluded two weeks ago in a vote at the City of York Council. Throughout the whole affair, I have supported a community stadium being built, subject to adequate support being given to our retailers in the city centre due to the proposed expanse of retail activity around a new community stadium. With the plans voted through by local councillors, part of me is pleased that our football club has another reason to celebrate and I truly believe that they, along with York City Knights, will benefit from a new stadium.

However, we must ensure that this is not to the detriment of our city centre, and as such I call on the City of York Council to immediately cut parking fares in York. Some of the money raised from the developers at Monks Cross must be used to benefit the city centre and a cut in parking fees would attract more footfall for centrally-based retailers.

Over the next couple of months, I shall be consulting with residents in York Outer to try and find out what stops them from shopping in the centre of York and I shall push for the council to take action to promote the city centre.

I suspect that transport infrastructure may play a key role too and this could well feed into my transport round-table group.

As ever, all of these local considerations will involve a delicate balancing act. Only by being willing to consider and address our city’s key long-term challenges will we be able to ensure that York remains a resilient, attractive and prosperous place to live.