Dan Jarvis elected first Sheffield City Region Mayor

He won in the second round of voting

Author: Ben BasonPublished 4th May 2018

Labour's Dan Jarvis has been elected as the first ever mayor for the Sheffield City Region.

The Barnsley Central MP won on the second round of voting after he failed to get more than 50% of first preference votes.

He ended up with 144,154 votes overall.

Jarvis will now represent South Yorkshire on the national stage and fight for more funding and powers locally under devolution.

Reacting to the result he said:

"I feel delighted - I feel as if a lot of people have placed their faith and trust in me and I'm determined to repay that faith and trust. I think it's going to be quite challenging but I'm determined to get on and make the most of it.

"The big challenge will be working with the four local authorities and reach a consensus. I think I can see a way to do that - a way in which we can bring the four authorities together and take that consensus to government but that's frankly the challenge that now lies with me. It's one that I'm determined to get on with as soon as possible."

For the time being, Jarvis won't have a huge amount of power - he'll be Chair of the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority which works with the government and businesses and he'll have some influence over transport decisions.

A big challenge for him will be uniting the four councils in our county, as they've disagreed over what form devolution should take.

Barnsley and Doncaster want a Yorkshire-wide deal, whereas Sheffield and Rotherham want to stick with the current South Yorkshire one.

Dan Jarvis has long been a supporter of a 'One Yorkshire' deal which is being discussed at the moment.

The Conservative candidate Ian Walker came second, followed by the Liberal Democrats, then the Green party in 4th, the Yorkshire Party came fifth, the English Democrats were sixth and South Yorkshire Save Our NHS came seventh.

Overall turnout in the election was 25.82%, with 31.56% voting in Sheffield, 24.99% in Barnsley, 21.26% in Rotherham and 20.05% in Doncaster.