Devolution and local government success stories

The North, powered by devolution, is growing faster than the UK. 

Productivity is rising by over 7% every year as Mayors and Leaders bring to bear power and knowledge of their places through their local growth plans. The North exports over £130 billion worth of goods and services to the world and is at the heart of innovative industries like AI, green energy, and national defence and security.

New green jobs on the east coast - building on the UK’s industrial and maritime history

From the North East to Hull and the Humber Estuary, the skills and industrial heritage of our shipyards and heavy manufacture plants are being redeployed into offshore wind and new green energy technologies.

The North already generates 50% of England’s renewable energy and Mayors in the North East, Tees Valley and East Yorkshire and the Humber continue to build this strength and to champion investment opportunities. The expansion of activity on the East Coast and in the North Sea continues with three new energy parks on the River Tyne and one at Blyth that will serve these new industries, and the UK’s largest port cluster in the Humber which will develop carbon capture and hydrogen fuels alongside new sites on the East Coast like Teesworks, Wilton International and Saltend. Collectively, this is a multibillion regeneration of industry, creating an ecosystem of jobs and technologies. Estimates suggest that 100,000 new green energy jobs will be created across the North’s clean energy economy by 2030. 

The North East has also introduced the Mayor's Plan for Green Jobs – a commitment to work with businesses to double the number of green jobs in the region to 50,000 by 2035. The North East is a key hub for offshore wind, clean fuels and energy innovation and, in line with the government's Clean Energy Jobs Plan, it aims to deliver on its clean energy strategy, accelerating the sustainable energy revolution and embedding inclusive growth through good jobs across the region. The Mayor's Plan for Green Jobs is bringing forward the apprenticeships, retraining opportunities, and routes into work across the region that are needed now to meet these future needs. This connects local industries with schools and colleges to ensure that people understand where they can make an impact and are ready with the most relevant skills and experience.

World-class transport at an affordable price

The Greater Manchester Bee Network is the most compelling proof point that devolution delivers. Greater Manchester became the first UK city-region to bring buses back under local control, with all single fares capped at £2 for adults and £1 for children, and integrated into a seamless transport network with over 4.5 million passengers a week able to tap in and out across buses and trams. The Network has expanded journeys and improved service.

South Yorkshire brought Supertram back into public operation in March 2024 for the first time in 27 years, serving 50 stops across Sheffield and Rotherham. Passenger journeys are already 4.5% higher year-on-year and a £36m investment plan is now underway with 25 new trams on order. 

In the North East, Mayor Kim McGuinness is driving forward the re-opening of the Leamside Line railway and expansion of the Metro, with the project being the most important piece of transport infrastructure for the economic future of the region, reconnecting communities like Washington and the industrial cluster at Follingsby.

West Yorkshire is developing its first ever Mass Transit network to serve the region, backed by £1bn funding, with phase one to link Leeds and Bradford and connecting south Leeds to the city centre. The Mayor has championed this cause since taking office, to address the long-standing anomaly that Leeds is the largest city in Europe without a metro-style system. 

Delivering housing and regeneration projects at scale and on time

Mayoral Development Corporations are transforming our towns and cities. Devolution has given Mayors new powers to develop parts of towns and cities which desperately need new life, sources of jobs and economic vitality. Mayoral Development Corporations speed up planning and help bring together change makers from across business and all parts of the community, identifying what is needed and what will work in some of our most important places.

‘Unstoppable Stockport’ – launched in 2019 - has transformed the town with new green space, a bus station befitting a world class transport system, new homes, and one million square feet of new space for businesses and new jobs. It has now expanded its reach to cover the whole town centre and will deliver 8,000 new homes, a new school and a riverside park over the next 15 years. This leadership is vital, alongside powers to tackle complex challenges like land assembly, and is a model being adopted in other regions across the UK.

In Birmingham, where the UK’s largest development corporation was established this year, Mayoral development powers are driving an £11 billion regeneration in the East of the city – with 50,000 new jobs and 20,000 new homes part of a plan which includes the new Birmingham Sports Quarter and new Powerhouse Stadium, home to Birmingham City Football Club. The MDC extends to new developments alongside the Bullring, as well as a new Knowledge Quarter incorporating innovation spaces, the Aston University campus, and will sit alongside to the HS2 terminal in the city centre (Birmingham Curzon Street).  

Dedication to inclusive regeneration in Barking and Dagenham over the last decade has seen the borough build 3,000 new homes and London’s largest and newest film production campus at Eastbrook Studios. The London Borough - historically shaped by heavy industry from the docks to Ford automotive – took a pioneering and inclusive approach to economic development in 2016 and by 2023 was the top Council house builder with a strong external reputation for delivery. Net additional dwellings grew by 46% between 2016 and 2024, against a London-wide decline of 10%. By March 2025, the council had completed and handed over 2,774 homes under its direct delivery programme, 85% of them affordable, with a further 1,413 in the pipeline.  The council focussed on employment development as well as housing and the £1mn Make It Here programme has seen thousands of local school children actively involved and seeing pathways to opportunities at the new film studio development at Eastbrook. 

Action on prevention and embedded social inequality

Greater Manchester’s Prevention Demonstrator is a project at the vanguard of evaluating and delivering new prevention concepts in the UK, which are vitally needed and central to a strategic shift in the NHS 10-Year Plan. Greater Manchester’s LiveWell model has already integrated services and delivers support locally to communities, in partnership with VCSFEs and those who know residents best. The Prevention Demonstrator will take this further, scaling LiveWell, sharing data to guide decisions on what works, and unlocking new public funding as well as savings from the success of good lives and the reduction in demand for social and primary care. This trailblazer has the potential to both deliver high quality services within communities and make savings in excess of £1billion over a Mayoral 4-year term.

The North East established its first Child Poverty Reduction Unit in 2024, backed by a £500,000 initial investment. In 2025, the £28.5 million Child Poverty Action Plan was approved – the first regional intervention of its kind aiming to tackle child poverty and deprivation. The Mayor has taken several steps to reduce child poverty alongside the Action Plan, including through the Mayor's Childcare Grant, a £50 million package to help people stay in work, and a further £2.7 million to support children, schools and families.

Barnsley's Pathways to Work Commission – chaired by former Health Secretary Alan Milburn – designed a radical model integrating work, health and skills support, created by the people of South Yorkshire for the people of South Yorkshire. It provides a comprehensive, joined up approach to reducing economic inactivity, lowering unemployment, and closing the skills gap that limits inclusive growth across the region. The programme supports individuals to enter, remain in, and progress within work, helping them overcome health-related or other barriers to employment. At the same time, it enables employers to recruit, retain, and develop their workforce effectively. The region is now leading the first economic inactivity trailblazer in the UK, backed by £18 million, and aiming to cut inactivity from 25.5% to 20% by the end of 2029 – getting 40,000 people back into work. The Commission estimated that this model could deliver up to £4 of Exchequer savings for every £1 spent.

Liverpool City Region has created an award-winning UCAS-style apprenticeship and careers portal to support access to work and over 50,000 apprenticeships have been started including 65 new apprenticeships in Early Years childcare provision. This portal has been used to deliver a local advocacy and recruitment campaign to support parents and carers in accessing childcare, and increase awareness of careers and skills opportunities within the sector. It has been a key part of the region’s whole system response to ensure access to high quality Early Years Education, delivered by a well-trained, well-supported, motivated and valued workforce, which meets the needs of those who use it.

Leeds uses its publicly available and internationally recognised Social Progress Index to identify, track and improve projects with real local impact like providing business to support to diverse entrepreneurs, employability programmes and debt advice to vulnerable residents.  The index shows that opportunity across the city fell in the 5 years from 2018-2022 and the council have been working to address this and wider inclusive growth outcomes, combining the data with their own local knowledge to target funding on issues like reducing the impact of poverty on peoples real lives. 

In South Yorkshire, over 4,000 children now have a safe, clean place to sleep thanks to the 'Beds for Babies' campaign. Working with local charities, the Mayor has put £2.5 million of support directly into homes across the region, recognising the increasing costs that new and growing families face, and building the foundations for children to get the best start in life.