Supporting Thriving, Resilient Places
The North is a renowned place to live, work and invest. The quality of the North’s cultural, natural and heritage assets is unlike any you’ll find in any other UK region.
These sectors are a vital and growing part of our region’s economy. Culture and heritage alone contribute £4 billion a year to UK plc and are estimated to employ some 16,700 people across the North.
As well as supporting economic growth, high quality places also contribute to improved health and wellbeing, inclusion and diversity, skills and creativity, the net zero agenda and overall living standards.
The trend of remote working and domestic tourism, plus the greater importance that people are placing on their local places – present opportunities for the North to attract a greater share of private sector investment, visitors and skilled workers.
The NP11 and partners’ approach links strongly with the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper, which emphasises the importance of developing local pride and empowering communities.
Our Ambition
We have been working with strategic culture and nature partners across the North to develop proposals for how we can better coordinate place-based funding and attract more private sector investment, with opportunities identified around:
- The North’s natural environment
- Our growing film industry
- Improved digital connectivity
- Creative health opportunities
The Place Strategy and Delivery Framework, launched in December 2022, lays out our ambitions for utilising the region’s world-leading assets to drive economic prosperity. Arts, culture, nature and heritage could add £2.7bn in GVA to the North’s economy through our cohesive and ambitious plans for place.
A strengthened proposition for place will boost investment and relocation interest, whilst improving sustainability and regenerating key parts of the North that have long needed sustained and meaningful support. We want to work with the Government to help preserve the local identity of places in the North.
You can read more about our strategy for place here.
We are also developing a “live, work and invest” proposition which will complement local, regional and partner programmes by setting out a clear pan-northern vision.
As well as working across our 11 LEPs and with the North’s local and combined authorities, our partners include Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Nature North.
