The Northern Way Growth Strategy, which covers the North East, North West, and Yorkshire and Humberside, seeks to identify pan northern investments, which will add value to what is being undertaken in each of the individual regions. MRC McLean Hazel was responsible for the preparation, within an extremely demanding timescale, of the connectivity section of the strategy. This proposed a series of initiatives and projects with respect to air and sea ports, roads, railways, and inter and intra city-region travel.

MRCMH was subsequently retained to develop all the Northern Way transport proposals into an Action Plan maintaining an overview of the project and its objectives. In this respect, MRC McLean Hazel’s role included project management support, strengthening the evidential base and developing specific initiatives. These included research on the economic advantages of agglomeration of urban areas and the critical role of connectivity, developing an Implementation Plan for all the Connectivity initiatives, strategic advice about the development and direction of the Connectivity workstream, establishing and developing the “Northern Way Compact”, and examining the potential of innovative finance and delivery mechanisms.