The Northern Way
The Northern Way is a 20 year British governmental strategy to transform the economy of the North of England. It aims to bridge a £30 billion output gap between the North and the average for England.
The Northern Way focuses on issues important for the whole of the North—those that cannot be tackled by one region alone, e.g., transport infrastructure and marketing the North internationally.
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[edit] History
The strategy was first initiated in February 2004, when Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott invited the three northern Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), Northwest Development Agency, One NorthEast and Yorkshire Forward, to show how the North of England could bridge the output gap.[1]
[edit] Themes
To lead the delivery of this objective, an independently chaired steering group was established whose members had a range of different public and private sector interests. The Steering Group launched Moving Forward: The Northern Way Growth Strategy in September 2004, which focused on four themes:
1) Developing new City Region plans to work across administrative boundaries in the eight major conurbations of the North, namely:
- Tees Valley - (Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool)
- Tyne and Wear - (Tyneside and Wearside)
- Central Lancashire - (Preston)
- Liverpool City Region - (Liverpool)
- Manchester City Region - (Manchester)
- Hull and Humber Ports - (Kingston upon Hull)
- Leeds City Region - (Leeds)
- Sheffield City Region - (Sheffield)
2) 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
- build a more entrepreneurial North
- capture a larger share of global trade: key clusters
- meet employer skills needs
- the North’s connectivity
- create truly sustainable communities
- market the North to the world.
3) Working together differently and collaborating to make the most of £100 million public sector investment in the North and equivalent private sector investment.
4) Influencing local, regional and national decision-makers to ensure their policies and programmes support Northern Way goals.
[edit] Growth fund
The Growth Fund, worth £100 million, was launched in September 2004, and in June 2005 the Northern Way published its Business plan, setting out how to spend the money.[2] 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.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ "Moving Forward: The Northern Way.First Growth Strategy Report: Summary". Northern Way Steering group. September 2004. http://www.thenorthernway.co.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=418. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
- ^ "Moving Forward: The Northern Way". www.thenorthernway.co.uk. http://www.thenorthernway.co.uk/page.asp?id=40. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
- ^ "The Northern Way City Regions of the North". The Northern Way. 2009. http://www.thenorthernway.co.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=667. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
