Yorkshire and Humber is a region that boasts an increasingly strong economy with a wide range of business and industry located there. Its GDP exceeds £75.2bn and, as the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward is quick to point out, an impressive 5 of the world’s top 10 companies have offices in the region.

Marketing itself as the alternative to London and the South East for new businesses looking for a home, Yorkshire and Humber points to its location at the heart of the British Isles and excellent transport links as a major draw. Three international airports, the UK’s largest port complex, over 600 miles of motorways and the east coast main railway line ensure easy movement of people and goods around the UK and across the globe.

To keep improving the economic outlook, Yorkshire Forward is keen to attract foreign investors by encouraging and investing in a range of flagship industries. The ‘cluster’ theory of building business is well practised in the region, and seven sectors have been highlighted as key clusters which are either traditionally strong or have potential for rapid growth:

• Advanced engineering and metals
• Bioscience
• Chemicals
• Digital industries
• Food and drink
• Environmental technologies
• Healthcare technologies.

Yorkshire is one of the leading centres in the UK for advanced engineering and bioscience. It has one of the strongest food processing industries in the country and sits proudly at the front of the digital revolution. The region also has one of the best financial packages for business anywhere in Europe, and manufacturing is predicted to grow by more than 12 per cent over the next 10 years.

Size isn’t everything, but the thriving economy in the region is bolstered by the fact that its vast expanse – from the Pennines in West Yorkshire to the Humber Estuary in the east, from the North Yorkshire hills and dales down to the South Yorkshire coalfields – encompasses five major cities.

Bradford, Leeds, York, Sheffield and Hull are all distinctive commercial centres that drive the region’s business growth. Grouped together, these cities cover every sector of modern commerce, with an impressive selection of leisure, sporting and cultural activities for the people who live there. In fact, Yorkshire and Humber is one of the few regions where major cities are actually growing.

As one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities, Leeds continues to attract massive investment with £3bn worth of property development currently in the pipeline. Leeds is the economic centre of the region and is the biggest banking and legal centre outside of London. It is also one of the largest UK financial and business service centres, accounting for around 111,000 jobs.

The region also has a strong research and education base and boasts one of the largest concentrations of universities in Europe, including the UK’s most popular, the University of Leeds. All the universities combined attract more students than any other region in the country, producing 13 per cent of the UK’s graduates.

It is also blessed with an impressive countryside and landscape, including over 1,000 square miles of National Parks between the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District. The towering cliffs of Whitby, golden beaches of East Yorkshire, the rugged moorland of the Pennines and the lush Yorkshire Wolds are just some of the highlights.

But impressive scenery and a strong business and industry community in Yorkshire and the Humber do not paint the full picture for the region. Behind the commercial successes and picture postcard countryside lurks a varied socio-economic backdrop, with huge inequalities between the most and least well off.

Some areas, particularly North Yorkshire and parts of East Riding, are relatively prosperous. However, deprivation across Yorkshire and the Humber remains widespread, with five of the region’s districts in the worst 10 per cent of concentration across the Indices of Deprivation. Parts of Leeds, Bradford, Hull and Sheffield experience the most acute disadvantage, and West and South Yorkshire in particular have suffered due to the demise of traditional industry there; chiefly textiles, coal mining and steel manufacturing.

Over a third of the region’s children still live in households earning less than 60 per cent of the national average income. People living in the former coalfield areas of Barnsley and Doncaster have among the lowest incomes, and 12 of the 15 unitary authorities in the region are in the lowest 20 per cent nationally. And the region has some of the highest levels of preventable ill-health, long-term illness and premature deaths in England.

The region also suffers from high crime rates. Theft of or from a vehicle in 2000/01 was the highest of any region outside London (even though it has fallen by 20 per cent over the last decade), and burglary rates were the highest in the country. Violent crime, however, was the second-lowest.