Yorkshire is a place known as ‘God’s Own Country’ due to its beauty and is home to more than five million people.
It’s a region that I’m proud to be from and being born and bred in Yorkshire, it is somewhere that I’ve never wanted to leave.
We are straight up, down to earth people with a fantastic sense of humour and like all areas across Britain, we have our own set of challenges.
I’m immensely excited to be able to showcase what our region has to offer to GB News viewers and to share the successes people have experienced in Yorkshire, as well as their issues and how they can be solved.
Shambles market in York
Danny Lawson
At the moment, problems with transport, unemployment and county lines drug dealing are key challenges that are plaguing Yorkshire.
In rural areas, it is difficult to find a regular bus service, with many being discontinued due to the lack of profitability of the service, rather than focusing on the need for it. Plus bus and cycle lanes popping up have increased rather than decreased congestion in some areas.
Trains seem to be regularly cancelled across the region with many of us still having to ride sluggish pacers that should have been replaced years ago, and we roll our eyes at the HS2 project when we just want to get around our region more easily rather than reducing the journey time to London.
In Yorkshire, Hull has the highestunemployment and deprivation rates, followed by Bradford, Doncaster and Leeds andyounger people continue to bear the brunt ofthe jobs crisis caused by the pandemic.
Danny Lawson
Meanwhile,county lines drug dealing is “spreading across Yorkshire like Japanese Knotweed”, according to the Head of Regional Organised Crime, with every area in the county affected andchildren and the vulnerable being targeted by criminals to get them embroiled in a life of crime.
At GB News, we want to shine a light on the problems we have in Yorkshire, but instead of dwelling on them, we want to make them better and highlight how such issues are being tackled and focus on the good news stories in the area.
Boosts to transport funding mean that our rail service is being upgraded and the police are doing all they can todisrupt criminal networks by removing them and the drugs they supply and distribute from our streets.
Even though the high street has been struggling, some areas in our region have been booming as the pandemic has meant that more people are shopping locally than ever before, with a rise in hospitality jobs now that the nation is opening up again.
This coupled with an increase in skills courses has enabled people to get back into work.
If it matters to you, it matters to us here at GB News. Our viewers set the agenda and I look forward to hearing from the people of Yorkshire about what is happening in your area and sharing this with the rest of Britain.