OUGD603: Capital North Research

We were set the task to come up with an identity for a new idea set in place by the government, which  combines all the northern cities and joins them together into making one big northern capital. At the moment in the country most of the economy is coming from London, and this is a danger to the north.

We have been put into groups of 4.

The identity has been named 'Capital North', and has to represent four of the main cities, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Hull.

I want to explore these cities, as well as other cities in the north to get an idea of what the four cities are about and to try and pull any ideas from my findings.

Liverpool

Liverpool (/ˈlɪvərpuːl/) is a city in Merseyside, England, on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. A borough from 1207 and a city from 1880, in 2011 the city proper had a population of 466,415 and a metropolitan area population of 2,241,000. The city is within the historic county of Lancashire. Its urbanisation and expansion were largely brought about by its status as a major port, which included its participation in the Atlantic slave trade. Liverpool was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic, and many other Cunard and White Star ocean liners such as the RMS Lusitania, Queen Mary, and Olympic.

Liverpool's status as a port city has contributed to its diverse population, which, historically, was drawn from a wide range of peoples, cultures, and religions, particularly those from Ireland. The city is also home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Natives of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians(from a long-standing jocular alteration of 'Liverpool' to 'Liverpuddle') and colloquially as "Scousers", a reference to "scouse", a form of stew. The word "Scouse" has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect.

Tourism forms a significant part of the city's modern economy. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007, and it held the European Capital of Culture title together with Stavanger, Norway, in 2008. Labelled the "World Capital City of Pop" by Guinness World Records, the popularity of The Beatles, and other groups from the Merseybeat era and later, contributes to Liverpool's status as a tourist destination.

Several areas of Liverpool city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004. The Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, and William Brown Street. Liverpool is also the home of two Premier League football clubs, Liverpool and Everton. Matches between the two are known as the Merseyside derby. The world-famous Grand National also takes places annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city.

Land Marks in Liverpool

Manchester

Manchester (/ˈmæntʃɪstə/) is a city in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 514,417 in 2013. In the United Kingdom's second most populous urban area, which has a population of 2.55 million, Manchester is in the south-central part of North West England, fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium, a variant of which name is preserved by the city's demonym: residents are still referred to as Mancunians (/mæŋkˈjuːnɪənz/). The Roman fort was established around ad 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Historically part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire, south of the River Mersey were incorporated into the city during the 20th century. Throughout the Middle AgesManchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. The building of the Bridgewater Canal in 1761 built to transport coal triggered an early 19th century factory building boom which transformed Manchester from a township into a major mill town and borough that culminated in city status in 1853 - thus becoming the first new British city in over 300 years. In 1877, Manchester Town Hall was built and in 1894 the Manchester Ship Canal, at the time the longest river navigation canal in the world, opened, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to sea. Manchester's fortunes decreased after the Second World War due to deindustrialisation. However, investment spurred by the 1996 Manchester bombing led to extensive regeneration, particularly in the city centre.

The city is notable for its architecture, culture, music scene, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections. Known through time as a hotbed for radical ideas, Manchester was the site of the world's first railway station and is where scientists first split the atom, and developed the first stored-program computer. Manchester is also regarded as the birthplace of women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, and both capitalism and communism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began to write the Communist Manifesto at Chetham Library, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

Today Manchester is ranked as a beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Its metropolitan economy is the third largest in the United Kingdom with an estimated PPP GDP of US$88.3 billion as of 2012. Manchester is the third-most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors, after London and Edinburgh.

Land Marks In Manchester

Leeds

Leeds ⁱ/liːdz/ is a city in West Yorkshire, England. In 2011, it had an estimated population of 757,700, making it the third largest city in the United Kingdom.

Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the history of Leeds can be traced to the 5th century when the Kingdom of Elmet was covered by the forest of "Loidis", the origin of the name Leeds. The name has been applied to many administrative entities over the centuries. It changed from being the appellation of a small manorial borough, in the 13th century, through several incarnations, to being the name attached to the present metropolitan borough. In the 17th and 18th centuries Leeds became a major centre for the production and trading of wool. Then, during the Industrial Revolution, Leeds developed into a major mill town; wool was the dominant industry but flax, engineering, iron foundries, printing, and other industries were important. From being a compact market town in the valley of the River Aire in the 16th century Leeds expanded and absorbed the surrounding villages to become a populous urban centre by the mid-20th century.

Today Leeds is ranked as a gamma world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network; and is considered the cultural, financial and commercial heart of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. Leeds is served by three universities, and has the fourth largest student populations in the country and has the country's fourth largest urban economy. After London, Leeds is the largest legal centre in the UK, and in 2011 its financial and insurance services industry was worth £2.1 billion, the 5th largest in the UK, with over 30 national and international banks located in the city. It is the leading UK city for telephone delivered banking and related financial services, with over 30 call centres employing around 20,000 people.

Public transport, rail and road communications networks in the region are focused on Leeds and there are a number of twinning arrangements with towns and cities in other countries. Its assigned role in the Leeds City Region partnership recognises the city's importance to regional economic development, and the second phase of High Speed 2 plans to connect Leeds to London via East Midlands Hub and Sheffield Meadowhall.

Leeds landmarks

Hull

Hull, officially Kingston upon Hull (ⁱ/ˌkɪŋstən əpɒn ˈhʌl/ king-stən ə-pon hul, local /ˈhʊl/), is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles (40 km) inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of 256,100 (2011 est.).

The town of Hull was founded late in the 12th century. The monks of Meaux Abbey needed a port where the wool from their estates could be exported. They chose a place at the junction of the rivers Hull and Humber to build a quay.

The exact year Hull was founded is not known but it was first mentioned in 1193. It was called Wyke on Hull. Renamed Kings-town upon Hull by King Edward I in 1299, the town and city of Hull has served as market town, military supply port, a trading hub, fishing and whaling centre, and industrial metropolis.

Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, played a key role in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.

The city is unique in the UK in having had a municipally owned telephone system from 1902, sporting cream, not red, telephone boxes.

After suffering heavy damage during the Second World War (the 'Hull Blitz'), Hull weathered a period of post-industrial decline, during which the city gained unfavourable results on measures of social deprivation, education and policing. During the early 21st-century spending boom (before the late 2000s recession) the city saw large amounts of new retail, commercial, housing and public service construction spending.

Established tourist attractions include the historic Old Town and Museum Quarter, Hull Marina and The Deep, a city landmark. The redevelopment of one of Hull's main thoroughfares, Ferensway, included the opening of St. Stephen's Hull and the new Hull Truck Theatre. Spectator sporting activities include Premier League football and Super League Rugby. The KC Stadium houses the Hull City football club and Hull FC rugby club and Craven Park is home to rugby club Hull Kingston Rovers. Hull is also home to the Elite Ice Hockey League Hull Stingrays.

In November 2013, it was announced that Hull had won the UK City of Culture 2017 award.

Hull Landmarks

High Speed Three

High Speed 3 (HS3) is a proposed rail link between Manchester and Leeds in the United Kingdom. Despite the name, the current leading proposal is for a 125 mph railway, the same speed as many of the UK's conventional railways.

A plan to improve rail journey times in northern England, the Northern Hub, was developed from a 2009 scheme to improve the rail network around Manchester. Schemes to improve the Leeds-Manchester linespeed by 2014 were included in Network Rail's CP4 improvements, with an aim to reduce Manchester-Leeds journey times from 54 to 40 minutes. In 2011 the approximately £290 million electrification of the Transpennine Manchester Leeds line was given funding. Work started on the electrification in 2013, with full electrification between Manchester, Leeds and York expected by 2018.

In June 2014, at a speech given at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne proposed a high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester; the line would utilise the existing route between Leeds and Manchester, with additional tunnels and other infrastructure. Osborne argued that the northern cities' influence was comparatively less than London's and that the link would promote economies of agglomeration.

Osborne suggested the line should be considered as part of a review of the second phase of High Speed 2. Initial estimates suggested a rail line with a 140 miles per hour (230 km/h) line speed, and Leeds-Manchester journey times reduced to 30 minutes, Osborne estimated the cost to be less per mile than that of HS2, giving a cost of under £6 billion. Initial responses to the proposal were mixed: Jermemy Acklam of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) suggested that plans should look at connecting other northern cities such as Liverpool, and potentially northeast England via York; commentators noted that the proposal could be viewed as an attempt to gain political support in the north of England in the run up to the 2015 general election: the Institute of Economic Affairs characterised the proposal as a "headline grabbing vanity project designed to attract votes"; the British Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry and others were cautiously positive about the proposal, but emphasised the need to deliver on existing smaller scale schemes.

On 5 August 2014, an alliance of five city councils - Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sheffield - unveiled an initial regional transport plan linking their cities called 'One North'. This plan incorporated a new 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) trans-Pennine high speed rail link connecting to the northern branches of HS2 at Manchester and Leeds (30min journey time), together with other regional rail developments, and the bringing forward of the construction of northern part of HS2, as part of a regional transport plan including other road, intermodal port rail freight improvements. The estimate cost of the high speed Manchester-Leeds rail link was circa over £5bn, with a proposed completion date of 2030; the entire project was costed at £10-15 billion. George Osborne attended the project launch, and provided his backing for the project.

A report Rebalancing Britain published by High Speed Two Limited in late 2014 also acknowledged the need for improved east-west transportation links in northern England, and recommended the progressing of the schemes in the 'One North' report.