It doesn't work though. You cannot just throw money at areas and create a sustainable economy. Fringe areas in the geographical sense will remain poor. Germany is the centre of Europe. If the UK stays in the EU then logically it could become Europe's offshore wildlife have - a giant national park for Europe. Personally, I think that would be a good thing but others will have an emotional attachment to the place rather than moving to Central Europe where the jobs will be.

You think Germany is the largest economy because it's in the middle of Europe?
Nothing to do with superb, modern manufacturing? Investment in key industries? Investment in infrastructure and education? A less short-term view of business? Good industrial relations?
Why isn't Poland just as successful?

I assume as well that Germany has no immigrants as immigrants are the main problem in the UK?

You have never worked for a company who was involved in the 1970s/80s in the construction of what is now a large "new town" where once was a village of a few hundred inhabitants who all worked in a city ten miles away - I go back there often and its changed beyond all recognition even to when I left the area, its hard for me now to spot the roads that were built on EU money back then, dual carriageways with wide junctions, good wide access roads onto industrial estates built with enough space for hundreds of HGv's to have good access to the mixture of both large manufacturing and warehousing, and small start up units - its hard for me to spot those original infrastructure investments that I was involved in because they were just the start and they've never stopped building since - Washington New Town has been a major EU success story and yet when I first arrived in 1977 it was a small pit village without a pit and a massive new road system built entirely on EU funding - I moved back to Leeds in 1985 only to see exactly the same thing happen in the Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire.

Please don't tell me it doesn't work.

And where is one of the most successful manufacturing stories of the late 90's to date based?

Do you mean Nissan and the influence it has had on the surrounding area with its gathering of feeder companies all keen to be in close proximity to its "just in time" procurement practices ?

You're right, its certainly no coincidence that they chose an area where, by the time they moved in, had already had ten years worth of EU infrastructure spending into an economically and employment depressed community, all the civil engineering works were in place for them, excellent trunk road links to North and South and more importantly a huge swath of virgin industrial estates laid out ready for their suppliers.

And to cap it all I got eight years worth of employment out of the region

Hull is still clinging onto the hope Siemens are coming to town.
Would be massive for the city, feeder companies etc as JC alludes.
I'm blase on the renewable energy argument.
Just want them here to pump some much needed life into the veins of the economy of our great city.
We deserve it.

Yep. Plus, of course, access to the EU market.

And a loyal, highly motivated, skilled work force that just needed cross training to their needs.

I've been inside Nissan Sunderland as one of our clients was a sub contractor there, I've also been inside Toyota at Derby for the same client and we have a Toyota subsiduary as a direct client of ours, each one employs several thousand and was set up from scratch to be run on the Japanese model with single union agreements, workers committees and no demarkation between "bosses and workers", indeed at one of the sites I go to the MD of the whole UK operation sits at an ordinary desk just behind the PC that I usually work on so you have to be careful what you're saying

A decade and a half or so on from their conception you have to say that they are very successful business models in an industry that traditionally, and run in the British way, had been a shining example of how not to manufacture anything at all.