A blueprint for Yorkshire’s future
THIS YORKSHIRE Day takes on national – and international – significance as the county responds to the human and financial toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It will require all of this area’s ingenuity – and much more – to counter the deepest recession in history and respond to the economic heartbreak still unfolding in our communities.
And it is why The Yorkshire Post is today launching a week-long initiative, A Blueprint for Yorkshire’s Future, to harness longstanding pride in the county and galvanise the region’s recovery.
An agenda-setting project, it is also one of the most important in the history of this newspaper, and region, if Yorkshire is to emerge from coronavirus, and lockdown, with new-found poise and purpose.
It will feature in-depth analysis on the key issues – expert insight from the key policy-makers and a bespoke focus on our market towns, the embodiment of our county, and how they can prosper as families, more so than ever, appreciate the value of local shops, produce, services and businesses. The special six-part series begins today with Malton.
Specifically, it will examine the current challenges – and opportunities – for an economy which encompasses industries as varied as pioneering green energy and cutting-edge manufacturing, or artisan food producers and excellence in agriculture.
And our journalism will look at the longer-term impact of coronavirus on issues like work-life balance and the environment – the premise being that this dreadful tragedy is presenting opportunities for societal change and a new way of life as home working becomes the ‘new normal’ for a great many.
Yet Yorkshire finds itself at this crossroads after decades of under-investment in key infrastructure; a decade of austerity and joblessness, specifically youth unemployment, now outstripping the national average – all in the shadow of Brexit.
Time is not on this region’s side if its global innovation – like the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre on the site of the former Orgreave colliery – is to be sustained alongside specific work at local level to prevent a generation of young people, this county’s future, being scarred by long-term unemployment.
On a legacy of previous recessions,
Robert Halfon, chair of Parliament’s Education Select Committee, will have some very succinct advice in Monday’s edition. “Our country’s anthem should not just be ‘build, build, build’ but ‘skills, skills, skills’,” he will venture.
We concur. It’s a strong – even sobering – message on a day when this county’s 5.3 million residents are accustomed to celebrating their pride in Yorkshire and basking in the glory of past and present heroes.
Yet it is also one which offers pragmatic – and practical – help and hope when thousands of families are mourning loved ones who have died due to Covid-19. Their losses remain uppermost in the county’s thoughts.
No part of this uniquely diverse county – urban and rural, inner city and coast – has been left unblemished by Covid-19 and the subsequent economic lockdown. Indeed, the threat to health remains very real, as Thursday night’s hastily announced local lockdowns across the North testify.
But the collective response of key workers – embodied by the NHS and our carers – and Yorkshire’s renowned community spirit has shown that this county is at its strongest when it pulls together as one.
And, as such, the area’s global ambitions must not be compromised by the parochialism, rivalries and jealousies of the past as more political and policy powers are devolved from Whitehall to the region.
Exactly six months after the UK’s first Covid-19 cases were confirmed in York, it is an appropriate time to mobilise grassroots opinion and start a conversation about Yorkshire’s short, medium and long-term future.
In the coming days and weeks, we will be seeking the views of all those who live – and work – here to establish their priorities in a post-pandemic world and how these can be translated into tangible policy improvements.
We will also work with local, regional and national leaders to ensure that Yorkshire is ready, willing and able to lead Britain’s national recovery and, in turn, enable the Northern Powerhouse to become a global success story envisaged for so long.
That work begins today – and we know we will be able to count on your support throughout the next week, and beyond, as Yorkshire presses the ‘reset’ button and faces up to the future challenges and opportunities with both resilience and confidence.