What the regeneration of Germany’s Ruhr can teach us about ‘levelling up’

William Cook has made several trips to Germany’s industrial heartland over the years. His latest reveals some lessons our own politicians would be wise to take on board

Industrial autumn landscape in the Ruhr, Essen, Germany (Getty)

Standing on the windswept roof of the Zeche Zollverein – formerly Europe’s biggest coal mine – Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhrgebiet (or the Ruhrpott, as locals like to call it), lies spread out below you like a map.

If you’d stood up here 40 years ago, you would have looked out across a sea of smoking chimney stacks. Today, you look out across a sea of trees. The Ruhr has become a forest, and the Zeche Zollverein has become a cultural centre, one of countless creative spaces housed in old industrial buildings right across this region.

How did the rust belt of the Bundesrepublik make the change from heavy industry to culture and ecology? And what can other countries learn from it?