North West England

Seat of the government office : Manchester & Liverpool
Website:
Website of Northwest Regional Development Agency
Website of North West Brussels Office

NW Regional outline

With a thriving �111 billion (�140bn) economy (2006), the 15th largest in Europe, the North West of England is home to 6.9m people, the third most populous Government Office Region behind the South East and London. In broad terms, the North West accounts for just approximately 14% of the England population and over 13% of employment. The region is home to two major international airports in Liverpool and Manchester, which provide a base for the regions tourism sector. Tourism plays an important role in the regions economy and is area of new growth, with each North West region being able to attract significant number of tourists.
The region is a very diverse one, with 15 Higher Education Institutes (NWUA). This is one of the largest concentrations in Europe and with the region retaining 52% of students who study within NW HEIs. This also means that the region is a centre for educational excellence and research.
In the last 20 years the Northwest economy has built on and diversified from its traditional strengths in the textiles, shipping and engineering to develop and benefit from modern, hi-tech sectors including ICT, biotechnology, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and telecommunications.
The region has 39,800 fewer businesses than the England average, and a significantly lower start up rate. Employment also runs lower than the England average, with 80,000 more people needed in work to match the average. The Northwest boasts outstanding quality of life with 11% of the region designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (2004). This contributes to a strong visitor tourism industry, worth �11 billion (�14bn) and 30 million overnight visits in 2006..

Area Profiles

Cheshire & Warrington

Cheshire and Warrington is readily accessible to the key regional centres of Liverpool and Manchester. It offers a high standard of living, with good quality housing in a range of urban, suburban and rural settings, high achieving independent and state schools, successful FE colleges and expanding University campuses in Chester, Warrington and Crewe. The working age population is declining � there has been a significant reduction in the 20-39 years age group since 1995.

Cumbria

This sub region represents half NW region's land mass but had only half a million people living there, so is predominantly rural with some more urbanised dwellings. Over the past decade there has been a decline in Cumbria's share of regional GVA. In addition, Cumbria is distorted by high wage levels in nuclear industry on West Coast. Historically there has been a heavy dependence on manufacturing, agriculture and tourism but now there has been more of a shift to the more high tech industries of chemicals, environmental technologies, as well as tourism and outdoor recreation.

Greater Manchester

The sub region is also the region's largest city and contributes 40% of the regional GVA and supports the fastest growing economy in the region. It hosts 4 Universities Manchester, Bolton, Manchester Metropolitan, Salford as well as MANCAT - the highest achieving research and teaching institutions outside the �golden triangle'. Industry strengths in Greater Manchester include financial and professional services, creative industry, high tech manufacturing and life sciences. The population is growing, but also ageing and increasingly short of 20 � 35 year olds.

Lancashire

Central Lancashire is one of three, Northwest city regions, identified as one of the region's major drivers of economic growth that has strong transport infrastructure with excellent motorway links/public transport. Its key economic assets include: higher value added manufacturing, a world leading aerospace sector, electronics, automotive, nuclear, high technology textiles, chemicals, rubber and plastics and food a and drink. Many parts of the City Region already have a high quality housing offering - contrasting heavily with housing market collapse in seven inner urban areas of Lancashire.

Merseyside

Liverpool, the European Capital of Culture is part of the Merseyside sub-region. Its economy is continuing to grow strongly, and in 2004 it was worth �17bn (�21bn). However, on many key socio-economic indicators, Liverpool still lags the rest of the region and has large areas of concentrated and long standing deprivation, worklessness and economic inactivity. There are high concentrations of people with low levels of qualifications and GVA per head in 2004 was just 71% of the UK average

Contact information:

Ian McHugh
Equality & Diversity Policy Manager (External Strategies)
Northwest Development Agency
Ian dot McHugh at nwda dot co dot uk

Click here to get back to the regions map

To avoid SPAM-abuse of the e-mail address the '@' sign was written as 'a t' and each dot '.' as 'd o t'. Please change the recipient address of your message accordingly. We apologize for this inconvenience.