From Michael Rosen and Len Pennie to political poetry, local voices and the return of The Ballad of Blea Wyke, Say Owt’s autumn season shows what can happen when artists are given a room - and audiences are trusted to listen

A free celebration of Bowie brought world-class performers, homegrown talent and 2,500 people into the Opera House. But behind the standing ovations was a more consequential idea: that culture can help Blackpool reshape its economy, strengthen its communities and determine how the town is seen

A new poll suggests strong public support for breaking up concentrated media power and funding independent journalism. For small publishers trying to report the North with care, the question is not abstract. It is about whose stories are heard - and whether those telling them can afford to carry on

A Yorkshire Dales charity has helped build a national recycling network for redundant tree shelters. But with millions of plastic guards still scattered across Britain’s woodlands, campaigners say their eventual removal must be planned - and paid for - before the first tree goes into the ground

Ember & the Vixens return to Salford this August Bank Holiday - with every ticket helping Independent Choices support people affected by domestic abuse

The curlew’s cry remains one of the defining sounds of the Yorkshire uplands. Keeping it there will require communities, conservationists and farmers to begin working together long before next year’s mowing starts

As the Aesthetica Art Prize marks two decades, York Art Gallery prepares to host a major international exhibition exploring ecology, identity, memory, technology and the unstable business of being human

Northern School of Contemporary Dance is marking four decades in Leeds with a free celebration of creativity, memory and community in the heart of Chapeltown

North East artist Kitt is turning the urgent need to fund their own gender-affirming healthcare into a participatory work of flowers, clay, tenderness and radical joy

Teesside is attempting to recover the metals hidden inside Britain’s discarded technology. Could urban mining create a genuinely northern industry - or will another promised economic revolution pass local communities by?

At this year’s Staithes Festival of Arts & Heritage, the North Yorkshire coast will do what it has done for generations: make room for artists. But in 2026, that invitation extends deliberately to those still finding their voice

South Asian Arts-uk marks 15 years of its Leeds Summer Solstice Festival with an evening of celestial music at Howard Assembly Room - a celebration of voice, time, tradition and the luminous pull of the longest day