YORK’S growing reputation as a successful city of business was underlined this week by the sheer quality of the delegates who took part in the York Business Conference.

The keynote speaker was former M&S boss Lord Stuart Rose. And he was interviewed at the conference – one of the headline events of York Business Week – by The Spectator’s business editor Martin Vander Weyer.

There can be no doubt that York’s economy is very much on the rise post-recession. Unemployment figures are falling, and across the city, work is under way on several major developments – including the Terry’s site, and on insurance firm Hiscox’s new four-storey flagship office at Hungate.

While York continues to perform well, there are still barriers holding the city back. Not least of these, according to delegates to the York Business Conference, is is the state of the city’s ring road.

There has been much talk in Whitehall of greater devolution to the regions, and greater investment in infrastructure in the north of England. But, for businesses in York, it is not a proposed HS3 rail link beneath the Pennines that is top of the wish list.

“It’s the ring road that needs to be a number one priority,” David Kerfoot, deputy chairman of the York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership, told about 200 delegates. “Businesses have told us for three years that the ring road is the one thing holding back development.”

Ever since the Scottish independence referendum, Westminster has been promising to listen more to the regions. Let’s hope it listen to local businesses on this.