In this episode, Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, was in conversation with Simone Roche MBE, founder of the We Are Power, Northern Power Women Awards, and PoWEr Up Collective CIC.

During the discussion, the Mayor talked about the importance of the bus and the region's decision to franchise services; the pride he feels towards the new Merseyrail train fleet; making women and girls feel safer on transport networks; and the progress made on active travel in Liverpool City Region.

You can listen again below...

You can also subscribe to the podcast on Podbean, Apple or Spotify.

Alternatively, you can watch the conversation on YouTube.

About Steve Rotheram

Raised in Kirkby in a family of eight children, Steve left school at 16 to pursue a career as a bricklayer, starting out as an apprentice.  In later years he went on to work for the Learning and Skills Council. 

Steve began his political career when he was elected to serve as a councillor in 2002, representing Fazakerley ward on Liverpool City Council and held the ceremonial title of Lord Mayor of Liverpool through the city’s European Capital of Culture year in 2008.

In 2010, Steve was elected as the Member of Parliament for the Liverpool Walton constituency. While in Westminster, he led campaigns for justice for the Hillsborough families; in support of blacklisted workers; for compensation for those suffering from mesothelioma and asbestosis; and to change the law on the use of old tyres on buses and coaches.

In 2017, Steve was elected as the first ever Liverpool City Region Mayor, representing 1.6m people across the boroughs of Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and the Wirral and was subsequently re-elected in 2021.

Since taking office, Steve has created 60,000 jobs, 30,000 apprenticeships and 30,000 homes. He has taken the historic decision to take back control of the region’s buses, launched a new £500m fleet of publicly owned fleet of trains, and led the region’s economic recovery from the pandemic with a £150m COVID Recovery Fund.

In 2024, Steve was elected for a third term as Mayor with 68% of the vote, his highest personal mandate and more than any other elected Mayor in the country. During his third term, Steve has pledged to return to council housebuilding at scale, to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) into the region, to build three new train stations and to launch a free pilot of artificial intelligence (AI) in local schools. He has also revised the region’s net zero target to 2035 – the most ambitious target for a city region in the country.

About Simone Roche MBE

Simone is the founder of the We Are Power, Northern Power Women Awards, and PoWEr Up Collective CIC. This is a community of over 100,000, organically grown by Simone herself, and spans across all sectors, genders and socio-economic groups. She founded the largest celebration of gender equality in Europe: The Northern Power Women Awards celebrating role models and trailblazers. She also set up the PoWEr Up Collective CIC which enables forward thinking organisations to connect emerging talent with accessible role models sparking 14,0000 conversations. We Are Power has created £2 million in social value.

Simone was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2018 for services to gender equality and appointed Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy in June 2020 and was promoted to Captain in July 2021. Simone has been recognised on the Yahoo Finance Heroes List 2018, 19, 20 and awarded the IOD NW Chairs award for excellence in 2020.