Oecd Territorial Reviews Newcastle in the North East, United Kingdom

Increasingly integrated into its region, Newcastle functions as the growth centre of the North East of the United Kingdom. However, if compared to other UK regions, it shows limited prosperity and growth in gross value added, productivity and employment. In particular, the low-skilled labour force constitutes an impediment to a rapid transformation of the city region's economy. The urban core of Newcastle performs relatively well compared to a group of other medium-sized and formerly industrial regions undergoing economic transformation, but lags behind its European competitors on a wide range of factors such as GDP per capita, innovation levels, connectivity, social cohesion, quality of life, decision-making capacity and connections with their wider regions. Faced with domestic and international challenges, the city region needs to take a strategic approach in order to build critical mass and to compete. Better integration to build the required critical mass and strengthening the existing concentration of growth factors in the urban core are keys to this process. Overall, the city region needs to develop a mixed economy based on the continued upgrading of the current industry strengths and technical capabilities in the manufacturing sectors, and the fostering of growth in new knowledge-intensive services sectors. The weak and fragmented governance structure in the North East suggests that consolidating governance functions of local authorities and strengthening governance capacity at the city-region level may be a good option. The Territorial Review of Newcastle in the North East is integrated into a series of thematic reviews on metropolitan regions undertaken by the OECD Territorial Development Policy Committee. The overall aim of these case studies is to draw and disseminate horizontal policy recommendations for national governments.