Making Connections Welcome...


James Muir, Chair of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, discusses the importance of the Northern Powerhouse and the benefits it could bring to the region.


excellent feedback. Let’s hope we can instil the same levels of passion this time around! It’s now four months since I joined the Sheffield City Region (SCR) as Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Chair and the learning curve continues to be steep, although I have learned a great deal already. I’d like to share some thoughts and


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observations on the Northern Powerhouse and why it’s so important that we are an active member of this group. The Northern Powerhouse comprises of 11 LEPs (known as the NP11) that collaborate on a common agenda to drive economic growth across the entire region. They include the north west and north east of England and Yorkshire and the Humber. Yorkshire and Humber is home to more than 15 million people, 27.6% of England’s population The north of England and the Midlands were historically the engine of a bygone industrial age. Since the 1970s new industrial revolutions


his is the second edition of Chamber Connect magazine – and I’m happy to say that I hear the first edition received some


Over more than 40 years an ever-widening


gap in productivity has taken place that has led to a situation today where the north produces only 21.9% of England’s economic output. If the economy of the north generated an economic output proportional to its population size it would add more than £80bn a year to the UK economy. The Mayor recently led the first national debate


‘Yorkshire and


Humber is home to more than


15 million people, 27.6% of England’s population’


on the subject of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in Westminster Hall. The new UK Share Prosperity Fund will replace the European funding and Local Growth Funding regions receive and could be worth at least £2.4bn a year. The Mayor is leading the way to drive forward economic growth and tackle the gap between the richest and poorest regions of the country. The UK Shared Prosperity Fund presents an opportunity to press the


reset button and think about how we do things differently. This must be the start of our economic transformation, not


the end. There are many things as a LEP that


have replaced the old economic order and transformed our national economy, and there has been a significant shift in economic weight from the north to the south.


4 CHAMBERconnect Spring 2019


we can do to generate and accelerate economic growth in the Sheffield City Region, and we are engaging with the Mayor, the Combined Authority leaders and businesses to prioritise and invest in activities that create quality, inclusive and sustainable economic improvement that brings tangible benefit to all.


...to Chamber Connect


Some of our goals are particular to our region,


some we share with certain regions in the north and others are common to the north as a whole. The NP11 forum provides us with the opportunity to harness the power of our collective voice on certain key areas to drive a common agenda forward where that makes sense to do so. A great example of this collaborative approach


is the Transport for the North Board and Mayor Dan Jarvis’ Transport Vision and strategy. Thanks to this effort we now have a joined-up plan for investment in rail infrastructure that will deliver significant improvement in east-west as well as north-south connectivity across the entire geography of the north.


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