York’s council’s leader has said she would support powers to levy a visitor tax in the city.
Cllr Claire Douglas was speaking after Northern mayors met in the city to call for greater devolution to boost economic growth.
She said she would like to see the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority get powers to impose a tax on visitors, like that introduced in Manchester.
The Labour leader said: “The government’s asking us what kinds of things we’d want, I’d like to see more on being able to set a visitor tax so we can invest in our city.”
Manchester became the first city in the UK to introduce such a levy last April and Liverpool has since followed suit.
Manchester’s charge of £1-per-room per-night has so far raised £2.8m, according to the Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District which collects the levy.
There is currently no system which specifically allows local authorities to levy charges and Manchester and Liverpool implemented them using legal workarounds.
Efforts to introduce levies elsewhere have run into obstacles including opposition from some businesses.
Northern unity
Cllr Douglas’ comments came as mayors from across the North met in York on Wednesday to unveil plans to work more closely together to boost economic growth.
She said she was encouraged by the government’s commitment to devolving more decision-making down to communities.
The York leader believes many areas of York can benefit from regional collaboration: “Culture, digital and creative industries and heritage are really important to us as a city, we want to be able to offer jobs to people across different age ranges.
“Keeping people in York is a multifaceted problem, it’s about providing jobs for people to stay in our community but we also need affordable housing and business space.
“Transport also comes into it too, we need to build a system that gets jobs to people and people to jobs.
“Having a collective body working across the whole of the North will help bring viable jobs to our area.”