What Yorkshire can learn from Spanish lessons of revitalising post-industrial places: David Richards

So this week I wanted to explore what lessons Yorkshire and the North can take from Spain.

Spain’s renaissance reminds us that economic development transcends mere statistics – it is about cultivating environments where enterprises and individuals flourish in symbiotic relationship.

The narrative unfolding in places like Málaga reveals that tomorrow’s economic resilience will be built upon innovation, inclusivity, and adaptability – the same foundations that drove Europe’s original industrial transformation.

The limestone-clad mills of Bradford and Leeds once hummed with the mechanical symphony of textile production much as Málaga’s port once reverberated with the sounds of maritime commerce.

Yorkshire’s industrial pioneers – the Salts, the Listers, the Crossleys – were the technological disruptors of their age, harnessing water and steam to transform raw wool into the fabrics that clothed empires.

Today, as Spain is managing its transition from old industries to digital innovation, Yorkshire stands at the same crossroads.

The question is whether our northern powerhouse – based on coal seams, steel foundries, and woollen mills – can carve out its own path to economic resurgence.

Can Sheffield’s strengths in material science become a hub of advanced manufacturing excellence?

Can Leeds’s financial services industry become a fintech force to be reckoned with?

Could the deep engineering expertise embedded in Hull’s maritime past create innovative breakthroughs in renewable energy?

Spain’s experience is an encouraging one to follow.

The technical skills that once drove Málaga’s industry are now the basis of its cybersecurity expertise, just as Yorkshire’s rich industrial past is a good platform for future innovations.

Just as Spanish reformers have transformed labour markets and workplace cultures, Northern England must find its own balance between human connection and efficiency – perhaps even rediscovering the

cooperative values which once defined our industrial communities.

The challenge for the Yorkshire and the North is not just to follow in Spain’s footsteps; it is to forge a distinctly northern renaissance.

One that honours our industrial heritage while embracing with enthusiasm the unlimited potential of technology.

Just as Málaga has reinvented itself from a port city to a hub of innovation, so our northern cities must reinvent themselves, from the workshops of yesterday to the laboratories of tomorrow.

The question is not whether such transformation is possible – our region, after all, sparked the first industrial revolution – but whether we possess the vision, adaptability and collaborative spirit to ignite the next.

David Richards MBE is a co-founder and managing partner of Yorkshire AI Labs