Mayor confident on half-hourly rail service

York and North Yorkshire's mayor has said he hopes to see half-hourly trains between York and Scarborough by 2027.

Labour's David Skaith has been answering questions on BBC Radio York's Message the Mayor.

He also spoke about improving bus services, changing high streets and the need for affordable housing.

Read our takeaways from the interview below or listen to the full interview here.

Skaith has previously said he is determined to improve railway services between York and Scarborough to help drive economic growth, however, he said there have been challenges.

"One is a lack of drivers, we need about 23 drivers, so we are in the process of that training journey, and rolling stock, we physically don't have the trains."

He said work was under way to address both those issues.

"I am very confident we'll be able to get half-hourly trains services.

"The timescale at the minute is something like 2027, because it takes time to train drivers.

"We have to make sure we've got the drivers trained up and the rolling stock."

The amount of money the mayor will have to spend on transport will be announced as part of today's spending review.

"We know that bus travel in York and around North Yorkshire is not good enough," Skaith said, before adding that he was "exploring" all options to improve the situation, including bringing buses back under public control.

"A York city-wide [franchise] could be a very good option, but in rural parts of North Yorkshire it could be an incredibly expensive option," he said.

The mayor said there had not been the investment, with an emphasis on buses, in places like North Yorkshire.

He said people wanted to use buses but they needed to know they were reliable and "[were] going to come".

The mayor highlighted the work he was doing on high streets across the county, with a specific £10m fund to help communities expand their town centre offering, increase events and run activities to attract residents and visitors.

He said high streets were "not dying" but were changing.

"What I am driven to do is actually have a much wider offering on the high street, how they can become much more a place of community."

Skaith said one project they were examining was how to bring health services into high streets.

"To take some of those services you may go to hospital for, to get a screening for breast cancer or prostate cancer and have that offered on thee high street in a shop."

"We know there's about 10,000 people in North Yorkshire on the housing waiting list, which is shocking," the mayor said.

He said they were looking to increase funding particularly into social housing.

"There's a project just outside Thirsk, which we are supporting, where three and four-bedroom homes are renting for £400 a month.

"That's what we mean by social housing."

He said that was an affordable price to help people stay in the area, and without low rents people would be forced to leave the area.

He said the affordable element of homes being built in the area was not there.

"Roughly speaking homes are about 10 times the average salary in York and North Yorkshire," he said.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.