The Government cannot waste time in transforming the North’s economy - Henri Murison
At the end of one year and the beginning of the next, it is only natural to take stock. The Government has made a number of positive steps in the right direction. On devolution, the recent budget saw the Chancellor take an important step by beginning to join up budgets from Whitehall and by granting the first of many needed powers to raise taxes locally, namely a levy on overnight stays.
There was also the decision to order Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactors, based on factory-built processes developed by world class innovators including at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre; a jewel in the crown of South Yorkshire. And the idea of a Northern Growth Corridor has now been backed as government policy with Tom Riordan CBE, a longstanding advocate of the view that the North is greater than the sum of its parts, put in charge of it.
All of this I welcome, and I can see how it will make a difference. But there remains a lot to do. A lack of certainty over public projects is deterring the private sector investment which, if it came in alongside or even in advance of public funding, could unlock growth long before any project might be finished.
Whether it is a new station in Rotherham - the North’s town leading the way in productivity growth, a railway line from Bradford to Huddersfield or even a tram to Elland Road from the city centre and across to the West, these schemes would all leverage huge sums of private investment in the communities around them. In all cases, the private sector is also a potential provider of either finance, funding or both: from building a car park or retail space above stations for rail users, to developing many thousands of homes nearby.
Whether through trams or Northern Powerhouse Rail, connecting people to their nearest city or helping them travel between the great Northern cities, the prize in terms of productivity growth is enormous.
Back in the Spending Review, and in the Budget, the Chancellor committed to Northern Powerhouse Rail. In my time at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, and before working for the Yorkshire Building Society headquartered in Bradford, I have been making the case for a new station for the city and a connection through Northern Powerhouse Rail to both Leeds and Manchester. Despite years of promises, a train on the current infrastructure from Manchester Airport to Bradford has never been delivered because the capacity to run it has never been found.
The point is the principal rail links between Yorkshire and the North West are full. Investment is the only way to introduce more trains and to be able to run them more frequently and more reliably. Without it, anyone wanting to fly from the North’s long-haul hub airport, for decades to come, will still be relying on the M62, or down in Sheffield the Snake or Woodhead Pass.
The TransPennine Route Upgrade is hugely welcome but fixing the infrastructure the Victorians bequeathed us and bringing it up to modern standards for electric trains still only allows one extra fast train from Manchester to Leeds. A new line from Huddersfield to a Bradford-through station as part of Northern Powerhouse Rail would enable two more on top of that. Electrification and improvements between Leeds through a new Rotherham station to Sheffield will also make it easier than ever before to commute between Yorkshire’s two largest cities by public transport.
From retailers like Morrisons to property developers like Bruntwood, businesses came together earlier in 2025 to make the case directly to the Prime Minister. And the wider opportunity of the Northern Growth Corridor, stretching across the Pennines, is compelling.
For a decade now the North’s business and civic leaders have had an agreed coherent economic plan to create an extra million jobs across both sides of the Pennines by 2050. By generating jobs and investment from the decarbonisation of the economy, making our society fairer in terms of education and reducing health inequalities, doing more on innovation and transport the prize is transformational in scale. Back in the summer of 2025, working with Durham University Business School, we demonstrated just by getting better at adoption and translation of innovation into businesses in Yorkshire, the North East and North West we could together raise at least an extra £72bn or more to the economy.
There is a movement for the North to win. It stretches from our industrialists to those running our local authorities, from academics to our trade unions. As another year turns to the next, I invite this government to do what I believe it wants to do – to commit clearly to the ambition of a future greater than our past. To build a North for those growing up here in Yorkshire, from Hull to Huddersfield, Sheffield to Scarborough, where each and every one of them has the chance to fulfil their potential.
Both economically and politically - there is no time to waste for this government. It is now, or never.
Henri Murison is the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.