NERIP Insights - POLICY ISSUE How have commuting patterns changed in the North East since 2001? Understanding commuting patterns is essential to our understanding of functional economic areas – the geographies that echo how our economy functions on the ground. NERIP has analysed data in ONS’s Commute-APS product to show district level commuting flows in 2001 and more recently in 2008. This work builds on NERIP’s EGotNE (Economic Geography of the North East) project. APPROACH Commute-APS presents evidence about where residents of each local authority work and where workers in each local authority live. The outputs are a series of inward and outward flows per locality, and a distillation of changes in flows between 2001 and 2008. The first flow to/from each local authority is almost always to/from itself, but the variance of the first flow gives a very good approximation as to whether a locality is primarily either an in-commuting area or an out-commuting area. The analysis compares all of the North East local authority flows and the data also allows results to be evaluated alongside other UK districts. FINDINGS Specific changes since 2001 include a reduced flow from Sunderland to Newcastle and increased flows from both Wear Valley and Sunderland to Durham City. The results also indicate that commuter movements either to/from Wansbeck, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Tynedale and Alnwick have changed noticeably. The most recent 2008 APS results suggest that more than half of the residents of Chester-le-Street, Derwentside, Blyth Valley and North Tyneside tend to work elsewhere. Conversely, inward flows to Newcastle, Durham City, Middlesbrough and Gateshead are higher because up to 58% of workers travel in from other local authorities. People are most likely to live and work close to home if they live in the urban centres, or in the outer rural areas. The lighter coloured areas between urban and outer rural are where commuters tend to live ADDING VALUE A clearer understanding of economic geography enables more targeted decisions about the geographical effects of policy interventions. Go to http://www.nerip.com/library/view.aspx?id=1070 for NERIP’s reports on Economic Geography, or contact chris.young@nerip.com POLICY IMPLICATIONS The outcomes of this analysis are central to the formulation of Local Economic Assessments. The conclusions suggest that Newcastle, Gateshead, Durham City and Middlesbrough are amongst the potential focal points of functional economic areas. “Changes since 2001 include a reduced flow from Sunderland to Newcastle and increased flows from both Wear Valley and Sunderland to Durham City”