Merseyside Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram writes for the Globe as he reflects on his first full year in office.

At the end of a very busy inaugural year as Metro Mayor for the Liverpool City Region, it is good to have the opportunity to look back and reflect on those first 12 months.

When the opportunity came to stand for election as the region’s first Metro Mayor, I jumped at the chance to work to transform the area I come from.

Devolution means that decisions on the things that affect us are taken here, in the city region, rather than Westminster.

The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority brings together our six local authorities – Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral – to work together on key issues that affect all of our 1.5 million residents.

We are working to ensure that we have a 21st century transport system, a cleaner environment, an education and skills system that raises aspirations and lets our young people thrive, and economic growth that benefits everyone.

And working together with the six councils we have achieved a great deal in these first 12 months.

We are delivering an investment programme worth more than £1bn, to drive improvements in transport, skills, economic development and housing.

To mark the first anniversary of the Mayoral Combined Authority I am publishing a list of the Combined Authority’s top 15 achievements to date.

These include:

• Our £5m Households into Work programme, which will support 800 families into new jobs, by removing barriers to work;

• A brand new £13m station at Maghull, a new £19m station building and interchange at Newton-le-Willows, and investing £19m to connect our city region to North Wales by rail through the Halton Curve;

• And making major investments to support the creation of 5,000 local jobs, 2,000 apprenticeships and 25,000 new homes by 2020.

We are also working to transform our city region so our economy can thrive and benefit us all.

Our region boasts some of the finest assets in the country and we must make better use of them to benefit our whole region.

We can become Britain’s energy coast for renewables and the most digitally-connected region in the country.

That’s why we’ve established the Mersey Tidal Power commission to harness the tidal power of the River Mersey and we’ve started work on bringing ultra-fast internet to the whole of the Liverpool City Region.

And we will continue work to deliver an integrated public transport system, by introducing our new £460m fleet of state-of-the-art trains, and looking at how we use new powers to regulate our buses.

I stood as Metro Mayor because I believe that devolution is a game changer for our region.

One year on I’m more convinced than ever that we are making real progress towards a brighter future.