Yorkshire Forward was the regional development agency (RDA) for the

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 ...

region of the

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. It supported the development of business in the region by encouraging public and private investment in education, skills, environment and infrastructure. It was abolished on 31 March 2012 following the public spending review announced in 2010.

Regional Economic Strategy

Yorkshire Forward was created in April 1999 as a non-departmental public body to ''drive and co-ordinate economic development and regeneration and to improve their egion'srelative competitiveness and reduce imbalances within and between regions.''

Each of England's nine RDAs worked with partners in its region to create a Regional Economic Strategy (RES). Yorkshire and the Humber used the

business cluster A business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and glo ...

strategy of economic development, actively investing in key business sectors in an attempt to accelerate economic growth and encourage higher value added business. Yorkshire Forward identified 5 priority sectors that had the potential to deliver significant economic growth. The sectors were; Advanced Engineering and Materials, Digital and New Media, Environmental Technologies, Food and Drink, and Healthcare Technologies. As part of the RES, Yorkshire Forward undertook an extensive programme of regeneration. This included prominent physical development activity, with high profile processes in most of the region’s major towns and cities. It also included a Coalfields Programme, which saw the redevelopment and transformation of former coalfield sites into new residential, commercial or public open space developments. In 2010 Yorkshire Forward provided £10 million to part-finance the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre led by the

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

with

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

, anticipating involvement in any forthcoming new nuclear builds in the UK.

History

The

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

of Yorkshire represents 8% of total UK output. However, growth has not been sufficient to begin closing the productivity gap between Yorkshire and the Humber and either the London or South East regions. Businesses in Yorkshire benefit from average salaries below the national average, operating costs up to 20% lower than the UK average, and a competitive property market. In the Liberal Democrat-Conservative's Emergency Budget of 22 June 2010, it was announced that regional development agencies such as Yorkshire Forward were set to be abolished as part of the programme of radical spending cuts to reduce the UK's national deficit. Following a government review, some of Yorkshire Forward's responsibilities passed to a series of new '

Local Enterprise Partnership In England, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) are voluntary partnerships between Local government in England, local authorities and businesses, set up in 2011 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to help determine local econom ...

s' across the area.

References

External links

Yorkshire Forward WebsiteInternational Business Federation
{{Authority control Regional development agencies Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Yorkshire and the Humber Organisations based in Leeds Government agencies established in 1999 1999 establishments in England