50 Ideas for the North

Back in 2012, I read a book by horrifically right-wing US Senator Marco Rubio. It was called 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future. You can currently pick up a copy second hand, but I wouldn’t bother if I were you. 

Being a horrifically right-wing politician, Rubio’s ideas included things like cutting teachers’ pay to make them work harder, and things like that. Not so much “Innovative Ideas” as “Bloody Stupid Ideas”. But the concept stuck with me. “100 Ideas” seemed such a simple concept. And the way he’d gone about it seemed interesting too. He’d co-created the list of ideas for Florida in collaboration with citizens, businesses, civil society groups, politicians, etc. And I thought – that’s a concept that’s got legs. 

So fast forward eight years later, and I was in the pub with Tris Brown. A few pints down, I started talking about this Rubio book. And Tris suggested that we do it ourselves, but for the north of England. We could run workshops across the North, collate 100 of the best ideas that came out of these workshops, and then publish them in print, encouraging people to learn from each other, share knowledge and build a better North together. The failures of the various government-led Northern Powerhouse, Levelling Up Agenda, Coastal Town Regeneration stuff were still to come, but it was obvious even three years ago that it was going to be all talk and no action. 

So, we started running these workshops at the end of 2021 across the north of England, from Newcastle upon Tyne to Sheffield, from Huddersfield to Southport. And we’ve been speaking to literally hundreds of people, all with the best social innovation ideas for their areas, from the grassroots. The outcome was this publication – 50 Ideas for the North. You may notice that this is not “100 Ideas”, but we thought the concept was so good, that we could get two books out of it. So, look out next year for 50 More Ideas for the North. A concept so good we did it twice!! 

Our ideas are weird and wonderful, innovative and interesting. The few things they all have in common, though, is that they would improve the North in ways that benefit communities, and they have been sourced directly from the minds of people who live in those communities. We’ll be touring the North again over the rest of 2023 to source ideas for the follow-up, but you can get ahead of the curve by contributing online at 100ideasnorth.org. And if you’d like a copy of the book, you can get one on our Etsy shop here – https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1474505903/50-ideas-for-the-north. 

Patrick Hurley is Area Manager for the North of England at The RSA and he was Liverpool local councillor for a number of years. You can follow Patrick on Twitter: @patrick_hurley 

Tris Brown is a Comms and Corporate Affairs professional from Liverpool. Follow him on Twitter: @trisbrown