The Northern Way was a collaboration initiated in February 2004 between the three northern regional development agencies (RDAs), Northwest Development Agency, One NorthEast and Yorkshire Forward at the instigation of the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to focus on issues important for the whole of the North of England with a dimension larger than could be tackled by one region alone — for example, transport infrastructure, or marketing the North internationally.
The body was tasked to address the £30 billion output gap between the North and the average for England as a whole.
Although originally intended to have a twenty-year lifespan, the initiative's activity came to an end in March 2011, when its parent regional development agencies were wound up by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
To lead the delivery of its objective, an independently chaired steering group was established whose members had a range of different public and private sector interests. The Steering Group launched Moving Forward: The Northern Way Growth Strategy in September 2004, which focused on four themes:[1]
The Growth Fund, worth £100 million, was launched in September 2004, and in June 2005 the Northern Way published its Business plan, setting out how to spend the money.[2] The eight City Region partnerships published their City Region Development Plans to show how they would work together to grow their economies to address the output gap.[3]