Yorkshire and The Humber

Introduction

The Yorkshire and Humber area covers some 15,400sq km, of which 20 per cent is National Park. North Yorkshire and the Humber area are primarily rural, with a cluster of services and heavy industries around the Humber ports, whilst South and West Yorkshire are mainly urban, based on traditional industries undergoing transformation. 

It had a population of over 5.1m (8.7 per cent of Great Britain) in 2006, an increase of 3.5 per cent since 2001. The density is 334 people per sq km; generally highest in the south and west, in a band running northwards from the Sheffield/Rotherham conurbation through Barnsley, Doncaster, Wakefield and Huddersfield to Leeds/Bradford. The lowest is in North Yorkshire (74 per sq km).

Demographics for Yorkshire and The Humber

Mid-2007 Population Estimates

Figures updated annually. Last update February 2009. Source: Office for National Statistics.

Regional Minister for Yorkshire and The Humber: Rt Hon Rosie Winterton MP

Children and Learners

• £18.6m has been allocated for the development of extended schools in 2009-10
• since 2004 over £1.2bn has been allocated so far to local education authorities in Yorkshire and The Humber under the Building Schools for the Future programme. Under waves one to three Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Barnsley and North Lincolnshire have all been approved. Barnsley will see over £1bn of investment with nine Advanced Learning Centres (ALCs) replaced with 13 secondary schools by 2012  - seven ALCs are being paid for by the government and two by the council
• £12.4m investment for providing eight secondary schools in Leeds with the latest technology, announced in May 2007. The investment is being funded with a grant from Partnership for Schools, the agency responsible for delivering the government’s school renewal programme 
• as part of a £9m national share of funding allocated to 41 local authorities, eight authorities in the Yorkshire and Humber region are to receive a total of £1.75m to  help parents of pre-school children to get more involved in their education
• Yorkshire and The Humber will receive almost £233m as part of a £4bn grant (spread over three years) to ensure delivery of improved children’s centres, early years education and childcare in each local authority area

Health and Well Being

• £30m has been spent under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) on a new maternity unit at Hull Royal Infirmary providing 85 in-patient beds and a neo-natal unit 
• in Leeds £137m has been spent on redeveloping and centralising cancer services at St James' Hospital and to improve present provision, Cookridge Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary have received cutting-edge equipment to better diagnose and treat cancer
• there are five NHS walk-in centres, in Dewsbury, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield and York (with a weekend NHS walk-in centre in Rotherham). 42 Healthy Living Centres have also been set up in Yorkshire & Humber region since July 2000 to maximise health and well-being in their target communities 
• there are eight NHS Foundation Trusts operating in the Yorkshire and Humber region: Barnsley Hospital, Bradford Teaching Hospitals, Calderdale & Huddersfield, Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospitals, Harrogate & District Hospitals, Sheffield Children’s, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and Rotherham. All were granted freedom to decide locally how to meet their obligations and be made accountable to local people, who can become members and Governors
• work has been completed on an £8.6 million acute adult in-patient mental health unit in Barnsley which replaces in-patient wards on the Barnsley Hospital site and facilities at Kendray Hospital. The new unit opened in September 2008

• an extra £263,000 has been awarded to Rotherham Primary Care Trust to spend on buildings, equipment and land in the coming year as part of £382m capital funding being made available to Primary Care Trusts across the country   
• an extra £50m will be spent on hospitals and services across the UK, including new community hospitals in Todmorden and Brighouse and a total of eight community hospitals will undergo a major refurbishment programme in Calderdale, Huddersfield, Holme Valley, Halifax and Huddersfield
• as part of a £40m share of national award funding, £4m has been provided to adult hospice facilities in the Yorkshire and Humber region which will complement the Department of Health’s programme to enhance dignity in care for the elderly.  Areas to benefit include: Barnsley, Bradford, Halifax, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Leeds, Rotherham, Scarborough, Sheffield, Wakefield and York
• as part of a £30m investment by Doncaster Primary Care Trust and Doncaster Council under new partnership arrangements with the private sector, the new £5m Vermuyden Centre recently opened in Doncaster. The Centre serves 15,000 patients, has its own pharmacy and out patient suites, as well as a customer service department and a library.

Crime

• of the 40 priority Respect Action Areas announced by the government, seven councils are in Yorkshire and The Humber. They have been chosen because of their strong track record in tackling anti-social behaviour, and a willingness and capacity to do more. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has also backed the scheme with £6m of funding in 2007/08 for parenting classes in the 40 areas
• £4.3m has been allocated to police forces within the region for 2009-10 under the Basic Command Unit Fund which provides funding that can be targeted locally to best tackle crime and its underlying causes, such as drug abuse
• £1.85m of funding is to be shared by Community Safety Partnerships across England and Wales to help tackle the problem of domestic violence

Transport

• £166m was allocated in the 2009-10 Local Transport Capital Expenditure settlement to improve local transport in Yorkshire and The Humber. This is in addition to an allocation of £11.1m through a specific Road Safety Grant announced in 2006 
• £18.7m was allocated for the West Yorkshire Education Transport’s Yellow School Buses scheme, serving around 100 schools in West Yorkshire. £7.3m was allocated for Phase 2 in 2005-06, with 60 buses launched in January 2006. A further 60 buses were introduced in September 2006 for Phase 3. The scheme was  completed in March 2008  
• £245m has been awarded to the A1(M) Darrington to Dishforth Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) contract. It also includes two Targeted Programme of Improvement (TPI) schemes to provide part of a new dual 3 lane motorway, together with improvements to the existing A1 all-purpose trunk road and motorway sections
• a total of £65m was allocated for two major schemes, including £50m for a scheme providing the final link in the Leeds Inner Ring Road, from the existing Stage 6 to the M621 and £15m for the East Leeds Link Road, a scheme providing a link from the M1 at Junction 45 to the East of Leeds. The Inner RIng Road Link was officially opened in November 2008 and the East Leeds Link Road opened in February 2009

• the £24.3m Barnsley Transport Interchange officially opened in June 2007, designed to rationalise and update Barnsley’s existing bus station and to provide better links with the rail station and improve traffic circulation in the town. Department for Transport (DfT) contributed £18.3m towards the scheme
• £23m funding from Network Rail, the Northern Way and Yorkshire Forward is being made available to revolutionise the region’s ports and reduce congestion on the roads. Network Rail has opened up capacity on two rail lines serving the Humber docks, relieving the pressure on the M62. The lines were opened by the Regional Minister in June 2008.

• Glasshoughton Coalfields Link Road has been given full approval. DfT has provided a funding contribution of £6.5m towards the total project cost of £11.9m.  A two-mile single carriageway linking the A655 Normanton Bypass to the A6359 Leeds Road in Castleford, has been built to enable traffic to be diverted away from the busy junction 31 of the M62 which will in turn allow development sites at Castleford and Normanton to be opened up. The new road opened in April 2009. 
• construction of a new park and ride site at Parrot’s Corner, Doncaster commenced at the end of July 2007 and opened in September 2008.  The park and ride site forms part of the A638 Quality Bus Corridor which has received Government funding of £15.3m and was completed early in 2009 

Social Inclusion and Regeneration

•  £54m has been allocated to Hull, £50m to Bradford, and £52m awarded to both Sheffield and Doncaster under the New Deal for Communities Pathfinder initiative
• Barnsley, Kirklees and Rotherham are Neighbourhood Management Fund (NMF) Pathfinders. Calderdale and North Lincolnshire have also made successful bids under Round 2
• Urban Regeneration Companies have been established in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield to bring forward developments and help create a thriving business climate for those cities
• under the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, nine local authorities in the region were allocated over £265m over five years from April 2001, to help improve services in their poorest communities. From April 2006 North East Lincolnshire will also benefit from funding, and the 10 local authorities were allocated a further £164.6m over two years to March 2008
• £154m was committed from 2004-08 to Transform South Yorkshire, under the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder. This is to help restructure declining areas of the housing market in South Yorkshire, and provide affordable housing. Under this programme £16m initial funding was allocated to Gateway for 2005-06 to address similar issues in Hull and East Riding, with additional funding of £33.7m for the period 2006-08
• £175m in local authority allocations for 2009-10 have been awarded under the Supporting People programme. This offers vulnerable people the opportunity to improve their quality of life by delivering high quality and strategically planned housing-related services which complement existing care services
• a total of over £88m has been awarded to local authorities in the region under the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI), a joint programme between Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury, and BERR to help foster enterprise in deprived communities
• a total of £101.7m over 3 years has been awarded to local authorities in Y&H under the Local Business Growth Incentive Scheme (LABGI)- a government scheme that awards Councils which are successful in encouraging business growth

European Funding

Yorkshire and The Humber has benefitted from European Union funding programmes. Under the seven year (2000-06) European Structural Funds programme:

• over £700m was allocated to the South Yorkshire Objective 1 Programme, a £1.8billion investment programme that aims to restructure South Yorkshire’s economy
• £350m was allocated under the Objective 2 Programme in the remainder of Yorkshire and The Humber which supported a near- £1bn investment programme supporting business growth and promoting economic development
 
Yorkshire and the Humber will continue to benefit from European Funding in the 2007-13 period, with over £400m from the European Regional Development Fund to support delivery of sustainable economic growth and £258m from the European Social Fund to tackle barriers to work and develop a skilled workforce.

Source: Office for National Statistics. Last updated 1 October 2009.