Sceptics will come round and see benefits of new authority, says mayor Claire

Having secured millions in funding, East Midlands mayor Claire Ward believes the region's communities will flourish, she tells JOSEPH CONNOLLY

- JOSEPH CONNOLLY

IT’S 2pm on a Monday afternoon when I meet East Midlands mayor Claire Ward in a coffee shop. Rain is hammering off the windows outside.

It’s been 15 months since the former Labour MP took up her post, in charge of the then newly formed East Midlands Combined County Authority.

When it was announced that, following in the footsteps of the West Midlands, a combined authority would be introduced for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, just 42 per cent of 5,000 people surveyed supported the idea.

Many who opposed it suggested that the introduction of a mayoral position would afford too much power to one person.

Plenty more just didn’t see the need. Claire does, though.

“As mayor, I've already been able to bring in a significant amount of money,” she says. “That's not just the £2bn that I've made the case to the government to get in the transport settlement, that we wouldn't have got otherwise.

“It’s also the £120m we've had additionally for the region just because we've got a mayor and a combined authority - in the last year.

“That is money we would have not got into the region otherwise. That's the difference a mayor makes!”

There are plenty of other customers dotted around the square tables of this establishment, but “Mayor Claire’, as her team have coined her, is straight-talking and focused.