![North-South divide in England](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/North-South_divide_in_England.svg)
The Northern Way was a collaboration initiated in February 2004 between the three northern
regional development agencies (RDAs),
Northwest Development Agency
The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) was the regional development agency for the North West England region and was a non-departmental public body.NWDA Who We Are/ref> It was abolished on 31 March 2012.
The Agency was responsible for t ...
,
One NorthEast
One North East was the regional development agency for the North East England region.
History
It was established in April 1999.
The North East received government aid for regeneration.
In June 2010, it was announced that One North East was to ...
and
Yorkshire Forward
Yorkshire Forward was the regional development agency (RDA) for the Yorkshire and the Humber region of the United Kingdom. It supported the development of business in the region by encouraging public and private investment in education, skills, ...
at the instigation of the then
Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president ...
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...
to focus on issues important for the whole of the
North of England with a dimension larger than could be tackled by one region alone — for example, transport infrastructure, or marketing the North internationally.
The body was tasked to address the £30 billion output gap between the North and the average for England as a whole.
Although originally intended to have a twenty-year lifespan, the initiative's activity came to an end in March 2011, when its parent regional development agencies were wound up by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Themes
To lead the delivery of its objective, an independently chaired steering group was established whose members had a range of different
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...
and
private sector
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The ...
interests. The Steering Group launched ''Moving Forward: The Northern Way Growth Strategy'' in September 2004, which focused on four themes:
- Developing new
City Region
City region is a term in use since about 1950 by urbanists, economists and urban planners to mean a metropolitan area and hinterland, often having a shared administration. Typically, it denotes a city, conurbation or urban zone with multiple admi ...
plans to work across administrative boundaries in the eight major conurbations of the North, namely:
*
North East England:
**
Tees Valley
Tees Valley is a mayoral combined authority and Local enterprise partnership area in northern England, around the River Tees. The area is not a geographical valley.
The LEP was established in 2011 and the combined authority was establish ...
- (
Teesside
Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Historically a hub for heavy manu ...
,
Darlington and
Hartlepool)
**
Tyne and Wear
Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...
- (
Tyneside
Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt.
The population of Tyneside as publishe ...
and
Wearside
Wearside () is a built-up area in both Tyne and Wear and County Durham, Northern England. It is named after the River Wear which flows through it and traditionally all in the County of Durham. In the 2011 census, its official name was the Sunderl ...
)
*
North West England:
**
Central Lancashire
Central Lancashire is an area of Lancashire, England.
Central Lancashire New Town
Central Lancashire New Town was the largest of the post-war English new towns, designated in 1970 and covering : the County Borough of Preston, parts of Chorley, ...
- (
Preston)
**
Liverpool City Region
The Liverpool City Region is a combined authority region of England, centred on Liverpool, incorporating the local authority district boroughs of Halton, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral. The region is in the historic counties of ...
- (
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
)
**
Manchester City Region
The Greater Manchester City Region, commonly just the Manchester City Region and sometimes the Greater Manchester Statutory City Region, is a combined authority region in England, consisting of Greater Manchester and five boroughs, roughly the ...
- (
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
)
*
Yorkshire and the Humber
Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York.
It is ...
:
**
Hull and Humber Ports - (
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-ea ...
)
**
Leeds City Region
The Leeds City Region is a local enterprise partnership city region located in West Yorkshire, England. Prior to the West Yorkshire devolution deal, the partnership covered parts of South and North Yorkshire. According to the Office for Nationa ...
- (
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
)
**
Sheffield City Region
The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority is the combined authority for South Yorkshire in England, with powers over transport (public transport and major trunk roads only), economic development and regeneration. It covers a total area of 3 ...
- (
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
)
- Key investment priorities were chosen that could exploit economic activity across all three northern Development Agency regions.
These investment priorities are:
* bring more people into
employment
* strengthen the North’s knowledge base
innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entit ...
* build a more
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
ial North
* capture a larger share of
global trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy)
In most countries, such trade represents a significant s ...
: key clusters
* meet
employer skills
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of w ...
needs
* the North’s connectivity
* create truly
sustainable communities
The term "sustainable communities" has various definitions, but in essence refers to communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. Sustainable communities tend to focus on environmental and economic sustainability, urban in ...
* market the North to the world.
- Working together differently and collaborating to make the most of £100 million
public sector
The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, inf ...
investment in the North and equivalent private sector
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The ...
investment.
- Influencing local, regional and national decision-makers to ensure their policies and programmes support Northern Way goals.
Growth fund
The Growth Fund, worth £100 million, was launched in September 2004, and in June 2005 the Northern Way published its
Business plan
A business plan is a formal written document containing the goals of a business, the methods for attaining those goals, and the time-frame for the achievement of the goals. It also describes the nature of the business, background information on ...
, setting out how to spend the money. The eight City Region partnerships published their City Region Development Plans to show how they would work together to grow their economies to address the output gap.
References
External links
The Northern Way official site(Dead link), internet archive image (2004-11-26) https://web.archive.org/web/20041126015635/http://www.thenorthernway.co.uk/
Yorkshire Forward WebsiteThe Northern Way Transport Compact*
The Economic Case for Transport Investment in the North- retrospective review of activities 2006-2011
Evaluation of The Northern Way 2004-2008 (summary)Evaluation of The Northern Way 2008-2011 (summary)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Northern Way, The
Local government in England
Defunct organisations based in England
Innovation in the United Kingdom
Northern England