[thomasforth]

In my comparisons with the Netherlands I explore this in detail. The centre of the Netherlands' main urban region is a six metre below sea level swamp that the Dutch never have and never will build on and which is just as much of an obstacle to agglomeration as the Pennines. So I really don't think this matters.

As for the weather, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Denmark are hardly renowned for their fantastic weather and they're all doing much better than North England. Meanwhile Southern Spain, Southern Italy, and Greece are lovely places but not doing well economically. I don't think the weather is a good excuse for Northern underperformance.

[CapeTheory]

The bad weather places you mention have largely uniform bad weather, which is not true of England - the south east is noticeably warmer and drier than the north west.

Weather is of course only a contributing factor, just like the historical influences.

[arpinum]

Factor in the ability to escape bad weather, much easier to do in UK than Denmark .