What we learned from the East Midlands mayor debate

Six candidates wanting to become the first mayor of the East Midlands came together to pitch their offer to voters.

A number of topics were discussed and debated, with valuable input from residents themselves.

The role brings in devolved funding worth £1.14bn over the next 30 years with a range of powers.

But what did we learn from it? Here are the main takeaways.

Across the debate, there seemed to be a broad consensus that the East Midlands feels like it has been left behind.

It would be hard to argue against that. Consistently, the region has seen some of the lowest public spending per head in the whole country.

In the Treasury's latest country and regional analysis, the lowest total spend per head was in the East Midlands, and then the South East, at £11,225 and £11,244 per head respectively.

So it will come as no great surprise to hear various candidates speaking about the need to boost the local economy and bring in more investment.

What there is less consensus on, however, is if the mayor will be the silver bullet to fix all that.

It has taken years to get a devolution deal for the region, but even now - in the build-up to polling day on 2 May - there is still no agreement over whether or not it will be the answer.

It is no secret that a big power the new mayor will have is over public transport in the region.

They could, in theory, expand the tram to Derby and Derbyshire, and overhaul the bus network through franchising. This will give the mayor the ability to decide how the routes, fares and timetables look, and to reinvest money from profitable bits of the network to less profitable ones.

However, while buses were brought up, the transport section of the debate was dominated by potholes.

They were brought up time and time again by voters, when BBC reporters went out and about across the region.

Some candidates offered road resurfacing programmes - but highways are controlled by county councils, and the mayor will need to work with them.

When the government announced it was scrapping HS2 beyond Birmingham, it said the East Midlands mayor would be able to decide how to spend £1.5bn of the money saved.

The Department for Transport suggested it could go on extending the Nottingham tram network - albeit with a bit of a blunder in the accompanying documents.

And there were warm words about the tram during the debate, with Reform UK candidate Alan Graves going as far as to say "people in Derby are quite envious of the fact Nottingham's got trams".

What we did not hear, though, was a firm commitment from any one candidate that they would extend the network.

It also did not feature in Conservative Ben Bradley's "four key transport priorities", and Labour's Claire Ward said while it was an "ambition", she would want to see a business case.

It could be that it is simply too expensive. The last extension cost in the region of £570m - and that was the 2011 price.

So wherever a hypothetical tram extension went, it would take a pretty huge chunk out of that precious transport fund.

The two counties are historic rivals, in terms of sport, culture - and arguably identity. But according to the candidates, the areas have more in common than they have differences.

One candidate is offering a tourism campaign to highlight both areas, another said the role brought the counties closer together - while a third said talk of a split was "unfair".

Voters, meanwhile, said the area the mayor was representing might too big - or that the job is too much. The mayor could be in Glossop, near Manchester, in the morning, and East Leake in Nottinghamshire by the afternoon. A journey of roughly 75 miles.

Legendary football manager Brian Clough - former boss of Nottingham Forest and Derby County - was one person who managed to be revered in both areas. The new mayor may need to summon the spirit of "Old Big 'Ead'" himself - once they have their feet under the table.

A Mayor for the East Midlands, a special programme broadcast on BBC One on Wednesday, can be viewed in full here.

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