Nicholas Craig column

Feb 24 2006 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

For years this region has prided itself on the quality of life residents and tourists are able to enjoy. The grim results of a survey looking at income, life expectancy, educational performance and employment rates gave me - and many others - an unpleasant jolt. In every measure we bump along the bottom.

We live two years less, on average, than people in the South-East, and have 10% less people in jobs than that region. Less than half of our pupils achieve five or more GCSEs at A-C, the worst results in the UK.

The Index of Success which put us in the bottom league followed a government report, Regional Futures: England's Region 2030, which said only 10,000 new jobs have been created here in 35 years. The North/South gap, it appears, is as wide as it was 70 years ago.

Yet this is the region that regularly tops the charts for business destination, student city and best tourist area in other surveys. The improvements I can see all around as a result of new developments, investment and job opportunities make a huge difference to life in the region.

These will take time to affect educational attainment, life expectancy and overall wealth, but the momentum must not stop.

We will have to work harder to push the strengths of the region - not only by celebrating its Passionate Places with glossy ads, but by tackling core areas in which we could perform much better.

UK regions appear to decline in "success" in direct proportion to their distance from London. Scotland, even further north, however, rates much higher than the North-East. It all comes back to central funding, from which major transformations in fortunes can be realised. The discrepancies in Government support between the regions are huge.

We live in a superb, beautiful, dynamic region which provides us with an outstanding quality of countryside, coast and city life. It was judged to be the "happiest" region in yet another survey last year. Our economic, educational and health outputs have to match those standards of excellence.

I will be seeing what the quality of life is like in India next week. I leave today, and will be visiting Mumbai and Nagpur, both bustling successes. I will report back.