AMBITIOUS targets to create 70,000 jobs in the region within ten years have been set by a scheme tasked with bridging the £30bn North-South divide.

Leaders of the Northern Way initiative held a summit in York yesterday to update business and civic leaders on how they hope to increase the region's prosperity by slashing unemployment and driving up skills.

The Northern Way is a Government-backed plan to equalise productivity across North and South within 20 years.

Yesterday's conference gave an update on the aims of the Northern Way and its projects to raise the economic output of the North-West, North-East and Yorkshire and Humber regions.

The three regional development agencies in those regions, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, are funding the £100m Northern Way Growth Fund.

Delegates heard that a £1.6m scheme started in December in Easington, County Durham, to get people reliant on incapacity benefit back into work was to be rolled out across the North.

The North's economy is worth £211bn, with 500,000 businesses and a workforce of 8.5 million people.

The £30bn shortfall is due to higher than average unemployment, poor skills levels and the fact the economy needs to be increasingly innovative and enterprising.

At present, the North's economy is actually growing faster than the rest of England, in part due to the overall economic slowdown which is allowing the region to play catch-up.

But Alan Clarke, chief executive of regional development agency One NorthEast, said there was a danger that when the economy picks up again, the prosperity gap between North and South would grow even wider.

In the North-East, the scheme has set targets to get 95 per cent of adults educated to at least NVQ 2 level - or the equivalent of five GCSEs at grade C or above - by 2010, and create 70,000 jobs in ten years, delegates heard.

Among the spending commitments for the next three years will be £5m for a design centre on the Baltic Business Park, in Gateshead, and £3m towards the National Industrial Biotechnology Facility at the Wilton Centre, on Teesside.