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Three years to the day after opening for business at MediaCityUK, we have been asked by the Director General to build on the work we started at ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ North - developing strong partnership networks across English towns and cities, getting closer to all our audiences and working more effectively together in our bases.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ North now becomes part of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ England, which we will run from MediaCityUK in Salford, working closely with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Bristol and ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Birmingham to bring our collaborative approach to fresh challenges right across the country.

that a further 100 ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ roles are to move to the Midlands puts more key departments at the heart of the nation. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Academy, vital pan-UK skills training for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ staff and freelancers, plus the core of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s HR and central internal communications team will move to Birmingham next year. Our base in Birmingham will become the centre of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ recruitment and talent development for the whole UK.

These new roles are central to the digital and creative sectors outside London where skills training and investment are crucial for the future. That's why our work with partners like Creative Skillset, Arts Council of England's The Space and Creative England are important. And tertiary education too - this week we announced that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Breakfast are to sponsor North East students in traineeships to commemorate our late, wonderful editor Alison Ford, born in Newcastle, who died nearly 12 months ago. We now hire 20 new people every month at MediaCityUK and over the past three years 60 young people have launched their careers through our entry level schemes - few formal qualifications required.

It's likely that more ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ jobs will also come to Salford as we rationalise our London property and further refine the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s new digital strategy, some of which is already powered by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ future media technologists, designers and engineers based at MCUK.

I'm very proud that the last three years has led to some innovative ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ work with new partners across the North, often building on our superb regional and local services, knitting together different strands of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ output: from Frankenstein Live in Leeds to The Preston Passion, from South Shield's The Great North Passion to Rankin's Alive in the Face of Death Liverpool exhibition, from Sheffield Crucible's CBeebies Panto to the 2014 Sports Personality of the Year from the new Leeds Arena and the Salford Sitcom Festival too. Just ahead is C³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Live in Newcastle-Gateshead, the Sheffield Documentary Festival, Yorkshire's Tour de France opening weekend and Liverpool's WW1 Royal de Luxe street parades, plus of course Manchester International Festival and the Hull City of Culture programme, all of which we are delighted to support. From Whitby to The Wirral, Warrington to Teesside, Halifax to Humberside, there is more ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ content being made or already on air - from dramas like Happy Valley to In The Club, From There to Here to Our Zoo, and from kids' shows like Old Jack's Boat to Three Little Pigs, our collaboration with Northern Ballet. This weekend brilliant network shows Last Tango in Halifax, In The Flesh, Dragons’ Den and the innovative Bollywood Carmen Live from Bradford - all made in the region - are up for BAFTA TV awards.

We wish all our programme makers well and whatever our new duties running ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ England, we don't intend to take our foot off the pedal across the North. Instead I hope we can learn valuable lessons from each other across the country - for instance, Bristol's Food Connections week just attracted nearly 200,000 participants to its events - a collaboration between ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ services right across the UK and some passionate partners in the city. In Birmingham we are working with the Local Enterprise Partnership's Creative City team to make sure a new ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ innovations unit based in Digital Digbeth can be a key part of regeneration plans and help us tap into the city's exciting young multicultural audiences - that feels like another win-win.

We have much to gain from these changes ourselves and I hope audiences the length and breadth of the country will benefit too - from closer creative relationships with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ England working alongside our local and regional teams from Carlisle to Plymouth, Norwich to Penzance.

Peter Salmon is Director, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ England

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