The Regional Monitor

The North of England has an economy worth £200bn, with 540,600 businesses and a population of 14.3 million people. Only six of the other 24 European Union countries have larger populations than the North of England, and the North is bigger than 46 of the 50 United States of America. These are impressive statistics, but they also raise this question: why is there a £30bn productivity gap between the North and the rest of England?

By working together across traditional geographic, political and sector boundaries over the long term, the North will be able to achieve its true economic potential. By sharing best practice and exploiting the assets and opportunities of the three regions together, the North can increase its competitiveness in national and international markets.

In Yorkshire and Humber – which has 270,000 businesses, an economy worth £70bn and a population of five million – development agency The Northern Way has already had a positive effect. Last February, the North had a great success when deputy prime minister John Prescott announced that The Northern Way’s recommendation that the Academy for Sustainable Communities be located in Leeds was approved. The centre is a prime example of how collaboration will make a critical difference.

Submitting only one bid, supported by the whole of the North, not only ensured the case for a northern location wasn’t diluted, but also gave Leeds ‘buy-in’.

The Academy will offer a ground-breaking approach to sustainable regeneration, as well as leadership development and capacity-building. It will provide hands-on project opportunities in a real-life environment for communities throughout the country, and will boost the ongoing regeneration and renaissance of the North of England. It will encourage engagement between regeneration professions and could include courses on planning, economic development, architecture and civil engineering. The Academy will also develop nine pilot ‘learning laboratories’, involving the creation of a learning resource through a series of studies into regeneration projects across the UK. Eventually it envisages 30 laboratories covering issues such as growth areas, housing market renewal pathfinders and neighbourhood renewal programmes.

Yorkshire Forward, taking the lead in marketing the North to the world as one of the 10 investment priorities identified by The Northern Way, has already implemented successful campaigns in America and Australia. By 2008, The Northern Way aims to have increased the number of overseas tourist visits by 20 per cent to 3.5 million (against a baseline average of 2.9 million visitors in 2002), and to increase this to 4.5 million by 2015. The campaign is already proving successful, with website traffic up by over 70 per cent, and 250 fresh enquiries.
The Northern Way has also seen a change in national policy and action since the publication of its first growth strategy in 2004. This includes the extension of the government’s Pathways to Work programme into nine areas across the North, and the recent announcement to pilot flexible employer incentives to support the achievement of second NVQ level 3 qualifications. Projects are ongoing in Hull, Bradford and South Yorkshire.

The Northern Way will only achieve its goals if key decision-makers across the North commit to drive forward the transformational agenda to provide the right conditions for the private sector to accelerate economic growth and provide a first class quality of life.

Government has already committed to work with The Northern Way to look at how national policy and investment programmes that can be shown to be a barrier to northern economic success should be addressed.