The Leeds City Region, or informally Greater Leeds, was a local enterprise partnership city region located in West Yorkshire, England. Prior to the West Yorkshire devolution deal, the partnership covered parts of South and North Yorkshire. According to the Office for National Statistics, as of 2017 the city region ranked 2nd behind Greater London for both population and GVA in the United Kingdom.
A renewed focus on city regions in the UK led to Leeds City Region's foundation in 2004. It was the third major city region to be established in the United Kingdom, after Greater London in 1965 and Greater Manchester in 1974, encompassing numerous cities and towns throughout Yorkshire including Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Halifax and Huddersfield. From April 2007, strategic local governance decisions were made by the joint committee of Leeds City Region Partnership and Leeds City Region Leaders Board. A multi-area agreement was established in 2008 and from 2011 economic development was supported by the Leeds City Region LEP, a business-led local enterprise partnership.
As part of a 2012 'city deal', the West Yorkshire Combined Authority was established in order to receive devolved powers for transport, economic development and regeneration. The secretariat for the city region was based within Leeds City Council. The Leeds City Region Enterprise Zone promoted development in four sites along the A63 East Leeds Link Road.
Local enterprise partnerships were abolished in 2024, with their functions transferred to combined authorities and local authorities. The Leeds City Region's functions were succeeded by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Geography The region covers a wide and varied physical area, taking in some of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Of the towns and cities, Leeds is the largest in geographical area, population and economy. However, Leeds contains less than a third of the region's population and geographical area.
Bradford is the second largest city in the region, together Leeds and Bradford contain more than 50% of the region's inhabitants.
Both Leeds and Bradford are among the top 5 largest local authority areas in England in terms of population.
Authorities The region includes the whole of West Yorkshire. Historically, prior to 2021, parts of South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire were included within the partnership.
The geographical area included in the city region is made up of the local authority areas in West Yorkshire, comprising Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield.
Each head settlement of the boroughs belonged to the pre-1974 lieutenancy area named "West Riding of the County of York and the County of the City of York".
Transport
The city region is served directly by Leeds Bradford Airport, although Manchester Airport is easily accessed by train and road from parts of the City Region, while Doncaster, Teesside and Humberside airports are also easily accessible. The Humber ports are also within easy reach.
The north–south A1(M) and east–west M62 motorways intersect close to Leeds, near the terminus of the M1 from London. A series of motorway spurs enable traffic to reach the centres of Leeds and Bradford quickly. There is a comprehensive secondary road network based on Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and York. The A1, A64 and A650 are important trunk routes.
Leeds railway station is the hub of the region's extensive commuter rail network. The primary link to London is the East Coast Main Line, which principally serves Leeds, Wakefield Westgate and York. There are regional semi-fast services on the Trans-Pennine line that serve Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Leeds, Garforth, York and Northallerton. West Yorkshire Metro, coordinates rail services in the West Yorkshire part of this area, but not in Craven and Harrogate which are under the auspices of North Yorkshire County Council.The Leeds and Liverpool Canal and Aire and Calder Navigation run through the region, though today they are only used for leisure purposes.
Plans are in place to improve public transport in Leeds, making it a car free city with upgrades to railway, bus services, and cycle lanes.
Economy According to list of cities by GDP, Leeds City Region is in the top 150 city regions worldwide based on its GVA. The region has a diverse economy consisting of around 100,000 businesses, generating around £52 billion a year and is becoming recognised as a national centre for financial and business services. Leeds is at the economic heart, with some 124,000 people engaged in financial services. The city is the UK's second largest financial and legal centre.
Rural areas have diversified with a mixed economy combining a range of employment opportunities alongside agriculture and a strong tourism base. Regardless of this, poor physical connectivity has hampered growth in rural areas. Agriculture has declined and there are pockets of severe deprivation and social exclusion. There are problems of housing affordability and poor access to services.
Although like most of the UK manufacturing has declined, the city region retains role in the UK's manufacturing base which has emerged from a period of restructuring and moved into producing higher value goods, managing off-shored elements of production and concentrating on research and development activity. The south and west of the region have historically had industrial based economies, although they have been moving away from this in recent decades. Huddersfield, for example, has been developing in the creative industries sector.http://www.investinhuddersfield.co.uk/creative2.htm
Economic drivers and innovation
City region growth sectors include
Financial and business services Electronics and optical Communications Health and public services Creative arts Niche clusters are
Digital and media Bioscience and medical research Advanced niche manufacturing, including defence Logistics and distribution
Tourism
Yorkshire is a popular tourist destination with many tourists using Leeds, Skipton, Bradford, Harrogate and York as bases to explore the Yorkshire Dales National Park. In 2007 the visitor economy contributed £6.3 billion or 8.5% of the Yorkshire and the Humber region's total output – a high proportion compared to the national average.
This output has grown by 50% in the last 10 years. The sector employs 243,500 people, of which 51% work full-time, in over 20,000 businesses. Leeds displays a variety of natural and built landmarks. Natural landmarks include such diverse sites as the gritstone outcrop of Otley Chevin and the Fairburn Ings RSPB reserve. The city's parks at Roundhay and Temple Newsam have long been owned and maintained by the council for the benefit of ratepayers and among the open spaces in the centre of Leeds are Millennium Square, City Square, Park Square, and Victoria Gardens. This last is the site of the central city war memorial: there are 42 other war memorials in the suburbs, towns and villages in the district.
The built environment embraces edifices of civic pride like Morley Town Hall and the trio of buildings in Leeds, Leeds Town Hall, Corn Exchange, and Leeds City Museum, by the architect Cuthbert Brodrick. The two white buildings on the Leeds skyline are the Parkinson building of Leeds University and the Civic Hall, with golden owls adorning the tops of the latter's twin spires. Armley Mills, Tower Works, with its campanile-inspired towers, and the Egyptian-style Temple Works hark back to the city's industrial past, while the site and ruins of Kirkstall Abbey display the beauty and grandeur of Cistercian architecture. Notable churches are Leeds Minster (formerly Leeds Parish Church), St George's Church and Leeds Cathedral, in the city centre, and the Church of St John the Baptist, Adel and Bardsey Parish Church in quieter locations. Notable non-conformist chapels include the Salem Chapel, dating back to 1791 and notably the birthplace of Leeds United Football Club in 1919.
There are two World Heritage Sites; Fountains Abbey (Ripon) and Saltaire (Bradford). Four national museums are based in the region; the National Media Museum (Bradford), the Royal Armouries in Leeds, the National Railway Museum (the largest railway museum in the world) in York, and the National Coal Mining Museum for England (Overton). Plus many other smaller museums depicting the industrial, agricultural and cultural history of the region, such as the Armley Mills Industrial Museum in Leeds, the Bankfield Textile Museum in Halifax, the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth and the Yorkshire Museum of Farming at Murton Park in York.
Skills and labour
There is a large and diverse workforce of around 1.4 million and a younger than average profile in some parts of the city region, for example Bradford. The city region is home to six universities, University of Bradford, University of Huddersfield, University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, University of York and York St John University, which produce more than 40,000 graduates each year. The universities of Leeds and York, along with Sheffield, form the White Rose Consortium, which accounts for 86% of research spend in the region. Science City YorkScience city York Website home page represents a mechanism for creating an environment in which technology, skills and business can thrive together. The city region has been at the forefront of telecoms.There is a range of available employment space with a significant amount of new office space in Leeds.
Housing There is variety of distinctive urban and rural communities. Many towns and villages are characterised by distinctive buildings based on an extensive Victorian legacy near to thriving job markets and commercial centres. Access to rural environments ranges from the 'high end' appeal of the Golden Triangle area of north Leeds, Harrogate and York districts to the towns and villages east and south of Leeds. Leeds is a centre for city centre living and has helped to stimulate similar developments in other urban centres including Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield.
Current patterns of demand at the upper end of the market are likely to continue, increasing problems of division of social groups and affordability. At the other end of the market there are problems both with the shortage of social rented housing and affordability. There is a significant legacy of dense terraced housing some of which is no longer fit for purpose. The government has identified Leeds City Region to host a number of new eco-towns to meet housing demand.
Political context The invitation to the northern regional development agencies to devise a development plan to tackle the regional disparities coincided with the peak of New Labour's regional devolution agenda. It is underpinned by the government's target to "Make sustainable improvements to the economic performance of all English regions by 2008 and over the long term reduce the persistent gap in growth rates between the regions, demonstrating progress by 2006."
The Northern Way In February 2004 the UK government invited the three regional development agencies in the North of England, Yorkshire Forward, One NorthEast and the Northwest Development Agency, to develop an economic growth strategy to raise the North's international profile and performance and reduce the £30 billion output gap between the Northern region and the average for the rest of England. In September 2004 the development agencies published "Moving Forward: The Northern Way (First Growth Strategy Report)".