Seems to me that the North's economic issues stem primarily from the nature of the regions leaders - using the term in its widest sense.

In many struggling Northern places, the local leadership is overwhelmingly from within the public sector - hospitals, councils, universities, colleges, schools are the places with the highest paid and highest status people. People whose position does not come from enterprise

This contrasts with more successful places who can turn to local and successful entrepreneurs (not merely business managers) and staff of their businesses that operate in an environment of entrepreneurship

Where the North has found "business" people to give leadership they largely come from either professional services (law, accounting, management consulting) or property development.

I don't know how we change this but it is clear that success derives from a cultural change where entrepreneurship is a social norm rather than the dominant managerial and risk-averse preferences.

https://bit.ly/2NsqFqe