Research on the distinction or lack of between the vowel sounds in foot and strut in northern English. Looks interesting, although I see it’s based on a sample of just 141 speakers. I think I’ve noticed the absence of this distinction in the speech of Paul McCartney and company and maybe some Scots. I’ve blurred the link because it’s a PDF and I think we’re supposed to do that, although I don’t know why.
Well, yes. Broadly speaking, accents north of Birmingham do pronounce those words more or less the same, unlike southerners (particularly RP speakers). Similarly, they tend to pronounce words like brass, path, class, bath with the flat a as in hat, rather than the longer ah sound that southerners would use.