WELCOME to our weekly column from your representatives on North Yorkshire Council.

This week Councillor Michelle Donohue-Moncrieff, who represents Hunmanby & Sherburn division, and is a North Yorkshire Independent gives her first monthly report for the Gazette & Herald.

In the coming weeks voters will be deluged with promises by candidates to be York/North Yorkshire’s first mayor. The new Mayor will have significant power in relation to roads and transport services.

We already have had the first sign of an electoral spring with a renewal of the 50-year-old promise to dual the A64. As a Councillor representing villages along the A64 any improvements to the road would be very welcome. The truth is that residents in the communities I represent are sick and tired of these empty promises. Ultimately it will be for voters to decide how credible the latest sales A64 pitch is.

One area that will come under the control of the new Mayor is local bus services. This comes at a time when the conversation about bus services has moved on from a decade of austerity and cuts to focussing how we can improve these vital local services.

Communities in rural areas such those in the Hunmanby and Sherburn Division that I represent already face the challenge of being a small part of the huge area covered by North Yorkshire Council. There is an even bigger risk that the York/North Yorkshire region will focus on the transport needs of urban areas like York and Selby at the expense of rural communities in Ryedale.

A good example of this was the inability of residents in rural villages such as East Heslerton, Sherburn and Staxton to use their local bus service during the government’s £2 bus fare promotion. While this scheme was very effective in generating funds for privately run bus services, it disproportionately benefitted urban passengers in York and Leeds over the needs of local people who were left stranded by the side of the road.

The York/North Yorkshire Mayor will inevitably be drawn to the transport needs of urban centres, but they will have to set out a clear vision for rural transport across the county. Their success or lack of it will ultimately be measured on what they deliver or don’t deliver.

While public apathy towards the Mayoral elections may well be the winner in May, there are issues of vital local importance that we all have an interest at stake. Once we have a Mayor the real work to make them deliver on their promises will begin.