Hartlepool has seen better days. Its port was used to transport coal from the Durham coalfields and manufacturing thrived on the Tees estuary.

Heavy industry is still important, although there is less than there was. The council has ambitious plans for regeneration. On the waterfront, there is evidence of previous attempts to turn the town’s fortunes around. The empty office blocks and the shuttered outlet centre show these have not been entirely successful.

George Osborne made a great play of the success of the northern regions in last week’s budget speech. The chancellor rejected the idea that Britain’s recovery is only happening within the M25. He boasted how the government had been successful in getting “the whole of Britain back to work in a truly national recovery”.

In one respect, Osborne is right. The recovery is not only taking place in London and the south-east. But that has been true of every upswing from postwar recessions. Of more relevance is whether the big gap between Britain’s north and south is widening or narrowing.

The chancellor gave the impression in the budget that this divide is a thing of the past. As he well knows, nothing could be further than the truth.

Representatives from Britain’s older industrial areas met on Friday in Hartlepool where they were presented with a report that showed how uneven the upturn has been.

Whose Recovery, a report from the Industrial Communities Alliance, does not deny that growth is returning to all regions. But it provides data to show that London and the south-east are pulling away from Britain’s industrial heartlands – the 96 districts that make up the alliance. Almost all are north of a line drawn from the Wash to the Severn estuary, and they have a combined population of 18.6 million, slightly more than the 17.1 million in London and the south-east.

The study shows that, in 2009-13, employment in the whole of Great Britain increased by 440,000 to 28,300,000. There was a net increase in employment of 540,000 in London and the south-east, but a 70,000 decrease in older industrial Britain. The latter number would have been larger had it not been for strong employment growth in Manchester (up 26,200) and Leeds (up 8,900).

The ICA study notes: “To some extent, these two northern English cities, which have been the focus of special attention in the deputy prime minister’s Northern Futures initiative and as the chancellor’s ‘northern powerhouse’ are now pulling away from the rest of older industrial Britain in the same way that London is pulling away from the rest of the country.”

Osborne might say 2014 was a better year for the north. This, though, is not really supported by the data, at least for the parts of Britain with ingrained economic problems. The evidence comes from the government’s Business Register and Employment Survey until 2013, supported by statistics where available from the official Labour Force Survey for 2014.

Recovery in the northern regions is patchier and far less well entrenched than in London and the home counties. The rate of growth in private-sector employment in older industrial Britain between 2009 and 2013 was one tenth of the rate in London and the south-east.

A higher proportion of the growth of employment in older industrial Britain is in part-time jobs: in London and the south-east for every part-time job created between 2009 and 2014, there were 16 full-time jobs. In the older industrial regions, the ratio was one to four.

What’s more, between 2010 and 2014, self-employment accounted for 40% of the overall increase in employment. Self-employment grew even faster in London and the south-east, but there is a difference. Vince Cable’s business department says a higher proportion of self-employment in London and the south-east is in professional and high-skilled occupations while, in the rest of the country, it tends to be more prevalent among “elementary or low-skilled” jobs.

This may help explain why the out-of-work benefit rate has fallen more sharply in older industrial Britain (down 2.5 percentage points) than in London and the south-east (down 2.1 points). Tighter benefit rules mean people are officially self-employed but, in many cases, scratching a living.

“Even between 2013 and 2014, as economic growth quickened to a seven-year high and London’s early lead might have been expected to narrow, the rate of employment growth in London and the south-east (2.8%) continued to outstrip employment growth in older industrial Britain,” the report says.

“During the recession, there were assurances that ‘we’re all in this together’. In fact, this was never the case. What is clear from this report is that, as the UK has gradually returned to growth, we are not all together in the recovery either.”

It adds that a higher proportion of the growth needs to be directed where it is needed most. Osborne would say he is trying to do this by the creation of his northern powerhouse, harnessing the strength of Manchester and Leeds to ensure that prosperity is spread more evenly. The chancellor plans to spend more on infrastructure and is devolving control over public services (and the money that funds them) out of Whitehall.

Undoubtedly, transport matters. One reason why the number of employees increased by 4,900 between 2009 and 2013 in Bolsover is that it is next to the M1 and was attractive for retailer Sports Direct. But the fact remains that per-capita spending on transport infrastructure is higher in London than in the northern regions, while overall capital spending has been cut as part of the government’s austerity programme. Cutting journey times between Manchester and Leeds is unlikely to help a town like Hartlepool.

So what would make a difference? Better road and rail links, clearly. An increase in research and development spending to at least the European average, with a focus on the industries of the future. Some tender loving care for manufacturing, which is still the lifeblood of old industrial Britain but which has not recovered the ground lost in the recession.

The ICA has a number of useful suggestions, including using procurement as a development tool, making the most of European funding, beefing up the enterprise zone initiative, introducing a job creation programme and cutting unemployment and low pay rather than benefits.

Terry O’Neill, Labour leader of Warrington council and chairman of the ICA, says he would like full financial devolution, including control over welfare budgets.

“People in London don’t understand what is going on. Our areas are lagging behind. Recovery is happening in spite of the government not because of it.”