The chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce issued a rallying cry for chambers across the North to work to get the most out of the Northern Powerhouse.

Running alongside the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, representatives from all of the Chambers of Commerce in the North met together to discuss what the Northern Powerhouse represents.

Rob Johnston, chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, said that the meeting was borne out of the confusion about what the Northern Powerhouse actually represented for businesses in the North and how they could benefit from the new initiative.

Mr Johnston said: “What’s happened today is very interesting, all of the chambers of commerce within the “Northern Powerhouse” territory have sat down together for the first time and that includes the chambers in Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire.

“This phenomenal collection of chambers were together to look at the whole of the Northern Powerhouse initiative and to figure out what were the infrastructure deals, business initiatives, transport opportunities and devolution.

“There’s a sense that the Northern Powerhouse at the moment is a brand without a clear product, which is why we have struggled to work out how we fit in it, but now we’re looking at how business reality and political reality meet.”

There had been some concerns that Cumbria might have been overlooked by the Government’s Northern Powerhouse plans, but Mr Johnston insists that with the Chambers working together they can make a significant difference.

Speaking about the role the Chamber of Commerce could have in influencing policy decisions, Mr Johnston said: “It’s time for the Chambers to stand up, we’re owned by the businesses that are our members, and we need to make sure we’re representing them.

“The Chambers are going to use their whole network to assess what’s needed to effectively lobby Government.

“I will make sure that Cumbria is committed to this and are at the centre of it all rather than being on the outside looking in and saying “what can Cumbria have.””

Mr Johnston was keen to emphasises that businesses do not operate solely within a county’s borders and that the whole of the North would be affected by changes in infrastructure to infrastructure.

The chief executive said: “When you look at our members across the North you realise that these Chambers are not a politically created entity and we need to work on their behalf to figure out what’s the most beneficial and how it could be more so.

“We need to look at ourselves as all being part of the north, not with Manchester at the centre of it and Cumbria being all Carlisle-centric, we’re all working together to find out what’s best and how to benefit and generate new business opportunities.

“Infrastructure projects will bring real challenges for growth, especially because we need to have the infrastructure in place to support the big projects in Cumbria, it’s not just an issue with the M62 and the M6 corridor it’s about wholescale changes to the skills infrastructure to deal with these projects such as the Moorside Nuclear project.”