New partnership formed to launch the Great North in £118bn investment push
The energy that made the Great North Run world famous could now “power the north”, its founder hopes.
Sir Brendan Foster has backed mayors from across the North to harness the spirit of togetherness and passion for which the beloved half marathon is so renowned.
The former Olympic athlete was speaking at the launch of the Great North, a new partnership between political leaders to which he has lent the internationally-known brand to.
At an event in Leeds on Monday, led by North East mayor Kim McGuinness and endorsed by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, proposals were outlined to unlock a potential £118 billion worth of investment and thousands of new jobs across sectors including green energy, defence and advanced manufacturing.
It is hoped that coming together under the Great North moniker can put the region on a global stage, with plans for the organisation to mount international trade missions and stage a new Northern Investment Summit to champion the potential of the north’s 15 million people, and make a stronger, unified case for serious investment from the UK Government.
Sir Brendan said that he and fellow northerners were “treated and felt second class” at the time when the Great North Run was founded in the 1980s and that he believed such attitudes were “still part of the problem” holding back young people.
But he told the gathering of political and business leaders that the energy, community spirit and joy that made the run such a smash hit can now “power the north to an even better place”.
Sir Brendan said: “It is a brand that means something because people have taken it on board, it has grown from them. It is a privilege for us to take those brand characteristics and the value of that brand, which is worth millions of pounds, and say to the Great North mayoral partnership, ‘there you go’.
“It is a brand people have affection for, people are proud of, that people will share with others. It has good characteristics and it was not us who invented that, it was not a brand marketing exercise, it was the people.”
The Great North plans include an ‘Energy Coast’ proposition encompassing the North East, Tees Valley, North Yorkshire and Hull to “power the UK’s net zero transformation” and enabled by major infrastructure upgrades like the reopening of the Leamside Line.
Ms McGuinness said she also wanted to “turbocharge” the north’s creative and cultural sectors and insisted that the Great North would deliver more than initiatives like the Northern Powerhouse or Levelling Up.
She said: “This is different because this is built from the north upwards and not handed from London downwards. This is not a slogan where a Government has gone ‘Levelling Up is a nice, jazzy buzzword that will feel positive’. This is built by northern mayors, with our communities, for the north, by the north.”
Addressing a crowd at the Royal Armouries Museum, Ms Rayner called the creation of the Great North a “whole new era” and said that Labour leaders in the capital were “here to help”.
The deputy prime minister insisted that, despite criticism over a refusal to back projects like the dualling of the A1 in Northumberland, “the north is absolutely central to Keir’s economic mission”.