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Yorkshire

Archive Image, YorkshireYorkshire and Humber is home to over five million people and includes a third of National Park land, two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and miles of Heritage Coast. The region which has the third largest Asian population outside London and supports around 70 community languages has culture at the heart of its economy, with over 100,000 people in the region working in tourism and the creative industries.

The three cities, Leeds, Hull and Sheffield, boost the region’s economy with Sheffield now producing a higher proportion of the UK’s steel than it did in the sixties and seventies. More worldwide exports go through Hull and Humber ports than any other UK ports complex and Leeds is the UK’s leading centre for financial and business services outside London.

Museums, libraries and archives are among the most well used cultural assets in the region:

  • Yorkshire and Humber has the third largest number of major attractions with paid admission in England. Its 163 museums, including four national museums, generate over two million visits per year.
  • Over 50 per cent of the population in Yorkshire and Humber are members of a public library. There were over 25 million visits to libraries across Yorkshire, an increase of nearly half a million on 2006. The British Library, based at Boston Spa, provides access to over 100 million research articles for over 10,000 business customers in the region and beyond.
  • Over 200 sites in the region hold public archive collections and the Yorkshire and Humber local authority archives process nearly 60,000 enquiries a year.

MLA works closely with the Arts Council, Sport England, English Heritage and Government Office Yorkshire and The Humber to provide support for local government improvement, sustainable communities and place shaping, and the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Manningham Library gets £1.5m grant

Funding means new meeting room and community garden

Thanks to a £1.5m Big Lottery Fund grant the library has not only had a makeover but has been extended to create a more family friendly space.

> Read more about Manningham

Leeds libraries' project takes national honour

Library staff help families with autistic children

Staff offer practical help, in partnership with a specialist team of autism and speech and language specialists at monthly sessions available at 16 of Leeds’s 53 libraries.

> Read more about Leeds award

East Riding's one-stop site

The Treasure House, Beverley, attracts a wider range of users

This newly published MLA Best Practice case study, shows how combining museum,library and archive services can see a big increase in users - an extra 120,000 people a year using this archive - and great improvements to the standards of collection management.

> Read more about East Riding

Poet opens newest Rotherham library

£1.1m lottery-funded refubishment for library

New library is twice the size of the previous one with more convenient opening times and a range of new facilities to suit different users.

> Read more about Mowbray Gardens

Work with young offenders

Best practice case study - County Record Office guides project to reduce re-offending

The North Yorkshire County Record Office worked with the HM Young Offenders Institution in Northallerton, to educate young offenders about the lives of offenders in the past.

> Read more about North Yorkshire records

Leeds in Up Front Campaign

Bold poster campaign by Leeds Libraries

An eye-catching poster campaign launched by Leeds library service aims to boost visitor numbers

> Read more about posters

York Museum Trust's Territories Project

York Art Gallery established as 'centre of creativity' through Territories project

An external evaluation has commended the York Museum Trust's Territories project, saying it has "maximised the potential of working with the community."

> Read more about York Museum Trust

related links

  • contact us yorkshire

    To find out more about the region contact the MLA field team for Yorkshire

  • yorkshire generic social outcomes pilot

    Work commissioned in 2008 to facilitate a pilot on the use of MLA’s Generic Social Outcome framework in the sector.

  • transforming libraries

    The relative impacts of creativity, financial investment and service transformation in enhancing the role of libraries in their communities.

  • regional plans

    Four agencies that report to DCMS (the MLA, Sport England, English Heritage and Arts Council) work together at a regional level to produce shared strategies for culture and sport.