Arts Council funding represents a vote of confidence in the region - Henri Murison

This goes right back to our founding principles outlined in George Osborne’s original Northern Powerhouse speech back in 2014. If we wanted to create global cities that people wanted to live in, work in and go out in, we had to invest in our culture and the arts, “not at the expense of our capital city’s great institutions but as a complement to them, and in partnership with them.”

There are signs that this vision is beginning to bear fruit, with Arts Council England funding allocations announced last weekend as part of its strategy for “Levelling Up for Culture Places”.

The North overall has seen its share of funding increase, with Yorkshire and the Humber securing £383.5m to spend over the next three years - 44 per cent of the North's total investment. Based in Leeds are Opera North receiving £10.7m, Booktrust £5.8m and Northern Ballet £3.3m. Leeds Museum and Galleries Leeds Theatre Trust will get £1.6m and £1.5m respectively.

It’s a vote of confidence for the region and is testament to the vast talent we have here. After all, this is the place that’s produced David Hockney, the Brontë sisters, the Arctic Monkeys, and so many more. Our artists, musicians, actors and writers are known around the world.

This matters for local pride, for our regional identity. It matters because it puts us on the global map. It matters for our economy too. Vibrant city regions attract people, they encourage us to go out and spend – not only in the theatres and galleries themselves but in the surrounding restaurants, bars and shops.

It means we can tell the next generation of Northern artists, performers and technicians that they don’t have to up sticks to the capital due to lack of opportunity here.

Following in the footsteps of Hull in 2017 and Leeds next year the win for Bradford to be City of Culture in 2025 will leave a lasting legacy well beyond 2025. Not only in the many, many millions in economic benefits, but the signal this sends to people who live here and across the world.

It’s working: more and more, talent is choosing to stay up North. The new creative director of Bradford 2025, Shanaz Gulzar, is a nationally-acclaimed artist, presenter and producer. She is living proof of the North’s flourishing cultural ecosystem.

Our arts sector is growing more ambitious and relevant to our communities every year. Momentum is building across all our creative industries, and that’s thanks to organisations like the Arts Council putting their money where their mouth is.

Not all the reaction to the Arts Council’s announcement has been positive, however. Leeds-born Stuart Murphy, the outgoing CEO of the English National Opera, called the decision to move the ENO from London to Manchester “a travesty”, adding there was no evidence of “audience need”. It’s disappointing to hear such ill-informed views from someone who hails from Yorkshire– and wrong to suggest that the ENO, particularly if it adopted a more innovative, relevant approach, couldn’t survive in Manchester.

There’s no denying, however, that the Arts Council has started an important and timely debate. This isn’t about doing down the capital but making the most of the whole country’s cultural assets, such as the wonderful National Railway Museum in York. Our national institutions should reflect the UK as a whole – and part of that is they cannot and should not all be based in London.

The £186m Factory International project in Manchester is set to open next summer with an immersive Matrix-themed experience directed by Danny Boyle, as it becomes the permanent home of the Manchester International Festival (MIF). Its partner organisation, the Factory Academy, is already making a hugely important contribution to the sector, delivering training for people looking to start new careers in the creative industries who would never otherwise have had that chance. This is the most ambitious project in the Northern Powerhouse and will transform the landscape, bringing huge benefits across the Pennines.

We’ll be discussing the role of culture with civic and business leaders at the Great Northern Conference later this month, hosted in partnership with The Yorkshire Post. There’s never been a better time to have a serious conversation about where culture fits into the levelling up puzzle.

The handful of naysayers who see the North of England as some kind of cultural wasteland couldn’t be more wrong. The North is confident, ambitious and bold, attracting visitors from every corner of the planet and compared with the likes of New York and other global cities.

We should celebrate the North’s unique cultural identity, not as rivals with London, but as partners.

Henri Murison is chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP).