The region's major rivers, the Nene, the Soar, the Trent, and the Welland, flow in a northeasterly direction towards the Humber and the Wash. The Derwent, conversely, rises in the High Peak before flowing south to join the Trent some 2 miles (3 km) before its conflux with the Soar,[citation needed] and the Witham flows in an arch, first north to Lincoln before heading south to the Wash.
Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, next to the Trent, and Waitrose, in Newark-on-Trent
The centre of the East Midlands area lies roughly between Bingham, Nottinghamshire and Bottesford, Leicestershire. The geographical centre of England lies in Higham on the Hill in west Leicestershire, close to the boundary between the Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Some 88 per cent of the land is rural in character, although agriculture accounts for less than three per cent of the region's jobs.[citation needed]
A quarter of the UK's cement is manufactured in the region, at three sites in Hope and Tunstead in Derbyshire, and Ketton Cement Works in Rutland.[8] Of the aggregates produced in the region, 25 per cent are from Derbyshire and four per cent from Leicestershire. Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire each produce around 30 per cent of the region's sand and gravel output.[9]
Several towns in the southern part of the region, including Market Harborough, Desborough, Rothwell, Corby, Kettering, Thrapston, Oundle and Stamford, lie within the boundaries of what was once Rockingham Forest – designated a royal forest by William the Conqueror and was long hunted by English kings and queens.[citation needed]
The National Forest is an environmental project in central England run by The National Forest Company. Areas of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and south-east Staffordshire covering around 200 square miles (520 km2; 52,000 ha) are being planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodland with new plantings. It stretches from the western outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, and is planned to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood.[citation needed][11]
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire attracts many visitors, and is perhaps best known for its ties with the legend of Robin Hood.[12]
Governance
Regional financial funding decisions for the East Midlands are taken by East Midlands Councils, based in Melton Mowbray. East Midlands Councils is an unelected body made up of representatives of local government in the region. The defunct East Midlands Development Agency was headquartered next to the BBC's East Midlands office in Nottingham and made financial decisions regarding economic development in the region. Since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government launched its austerity programme after the 2010 general election, regional bodies such as those have been devolved to smaller groups now on a county level. As a region today, there is no overriding body with significant financial or planning powers for the East Midlands.
The East Midlands region contains many urban areas which include:
Greater Nottingham (includes the Derbyshire towns of Alfreton, Belper, Heanor, Ilkeston, Long Eaton, Ripley and Sandiacre as well as the city of Derby. It also covers Nottingham, Mansfield, Arnold, Beeston, Bulwell, Carlton, Hucknall and West Bridgford. This means it spans parts of both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.) (Pop: 729,977)
Nine per cent of all jobs in the region are in logistics. Traffic in the region is growing at two per cent per year – the highest growth rate of all UK regions. It is estimated that about 140,000 heavy goods vehicle journeys are made inside the region each day.
Road
The M1 (part of the E13 European route) serves the four largest urban areas in the region and affords a motorway link between London, Yorkshire, and North East England. Additionally, the M6 begins on the south-western edge of the region, providing links to the West Midlands and North West England. Both connect to other major routes providing further links to other parts of the UK.
To the east of the largest cities lies the A1 (part of the European route E15), which is important for journeys to and from ports on England's north-east coast and the capital, and is a major artery for the United Kingdom's agricultural industry. The A46 largely follows the Fosse Way, which has linked the south-western and north-eastern parts of England since Roman times. The A43dual carriageway connects the East Midlands via the M40 motorway corridor with the university city of Oxford, as well as South of England and Solent ports further afield. The historically important A5 runs along the south-west Leicestershire boundary to the south of Lutterworth and Hinckley. The A14 runs through the north of Northamptonshire, serving the settlements of Kettering and Corby alongside surrounding areas, and is a major route between the region and the East of England, including the university city of Cambridge, and the major port of Felixstowe.
Airports
East Midlands Airport (looking west)
East Midlands Airport in North West Leicestershire is situated in proximity to the region's largest cities; some 14 miles from the centres of Derby and Nottingham, with central Leicester being some 21 miles away and Lincoln further north east being 43 miles away. The airport is the region's biggest public airport, used by over 4 million passengers annually.
Rivalry between the region's three biggest cities has led to a long-running discussion about the identity of both the airport, and region, with the East Midlands rarely found on any non-political map of the UK. The name was at one point changed to Nottingham East Midlands Airport so as to include the name of the city that is supposedly most internationally recognisable. However, the airport has a Derby phone number and postcode, and is in Leicestershire, but is officially assigned to Nottingham by IATA. As a result of the dispute, the name change reverted.
Air cargo aircraft at EMA
Three of the world's four main international air-freight companies (integrators) have their UK operations at EMA: DHL, UPS and TNT Express (TNT bought by UPS); FedEx have theirs at Stansted. It is the second-largest freight airport in the UK after Heathrow, but most freight from EMA is carried on dedicated planes, whereas most freight from Heathrow is carried on passenger planes (bellyhold). Royal Mail have their main airport hubs at Heathrow and EMA, as EMA is conveniently near the M1, A42 and A50. Heathrow takes some 60 per cent of UK air freight, and EMA some 10 per cent, with Stansted, Manchester and Gatwick next. Air freight has grown at EMA from 1994 to 2004 from about 10,000 to over 250,000 tonnes. The main hours of cargo flying are from 20:00–05:00; domestic cargo flies into the airport in the evening, then from 23:30 to 01:30 cargo flies to European capitals and from 03:00–05:00 from Europe to EMA. It is the UK's twelfth-largest passenger airport; the runway is the UK's sixth-longest at 2,900 metres (9,500 ft). Royal Mail flights from EMA go to Belfast, Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Exeter and Bournemouth, and it is the largest UK Royal Mail air hub, with eleven flights per night. DHL is the main route carrier at EMA by far with 20 flights per night, UPS have 6, and TNT have 2 (Belfast and Liège); for hubs in Europe, DHL flies to Leipzig, UPS to Cologne, and TNT at Liège.
A land speed record for trains was broken in the region. Although the record was set in 1938, the current world speed record for steam trains is held by 4468 Mallard, which clocked 126 mph (203 km/h) between Grantham and Peterborough, pulling six coaches on the East Coast Main Line near Little Bytham in Lincolnshire, on 3 July 1938. The Mallard record was unbroken by any British rail train until 6 June 1973, when an InterCity 125 between Northallerton and Thirsk reached 131 mph (211 km/h). Mallard in 1938 had six carriages and a dynamometer car. The national electric-train speed record (pre-High Speed 1) of 162 mph (261 km/h) was set on the same stretch as the Mallard record, on 17 September 1989 by Class 91 91010.
There are plans to bring a new high-speed rail line through the East Midlands as part of the High Speed 2 project, of which Phase 2 would bring a new line connecting Birmingham to Leeds, with a proposed station in Toton known as the East Midlands Hub It would also serve the region via "classic-compatible" tracks serving Chesterfield and Sheffield, just outside the region.
Water
The River Trent at the former High Marnham Power Station, next to the 1897 Fledborough Viaduct; the power station, built in 1959, was Europe's first 1000 MW coal power station (5 x 200 MW) and consumed coal from 17 collieries; the area is the largest collection of power stations in Europe, sometimes known as Kilowatt Valley
The Trent is a navigable river used to transport goods to the Humber, as well as passing by many power stations. The Trent is the only river in England able to supply cooling water for power stations for most of its length; it has the largest water capacity in England, although it is not the longest.
Several rivers in the region gave their name to early Rolls-Royce jet engines, namely the Nene, the Welland, and the Soar.
Trams
Nottingham is the only city in the region served by a light railway system, operated by Nottingham Express Transit.
Transport policy
As part of the transport planning system, the now defunct Regional Assembly was under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involved region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by the Highways Agency and Network Rail.[14]
A historical basis for such a region exists in the territory of the Corieltauvi tribe. When the Romans took control, they made Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) one of their main forts. The main town in the region in Roman times was Lincoln, at the confluence of the Fosse Way and Ermine Street.
After the withdrawal of the Romans, the area was settled by Angles, a Germanic people who gave the East Midlands most of the place-names it has today. They eventually founded the Kingdom of Mercia, meaning “borderlands,” as it borders the Welsh people to the west. The region also corresponds to the later Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, the area that Vikings from Denmark controlled. In about 917 the region was subdivided between Danelaw (Vikings) to the north, and Mercia (Anglo-Saxons) to the south. By 920 this border had moved north to the River Humber. Evidence of the Danelaw can be seen in place-name endings of the region's villages, particularly towards the east. The Danes under Canute recaptured the area between about 1016 and 1035, but it came back under English control after Canute's death that same year.
George Boole, pioneer of Boolean logic (upon which all digital electronics and computers depend), was born in Lincoln in 1815. The application of Boole's theory to digital circuit design would come in 1937 by Claude Shannon. Boole's grandson, the physicist G. I. Taylor, made significant experimental contributions to quantum mechanics. The first practical demonstration of radar was near Daventry in 1935. Robert Robinson, of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, invented the circular symbol in 1925 for the pi bonds of the benzene ring, as found on all structural diagrams of aromatic compounds. Nicola Pellow, a maths undergraduate at Leicester Polytechnic, whilst at CERN in November 1990, wrote the world's second web browser.
On the early morning of Tuesday 26 February 1935 the radio transmitter at Daventry was used for what became known as the "Daventry Experiment" which involved the first-ever practical demonstration of radar, by its inventor Robert Watson-Watt and Arnold Frederic Wilkins. They used a radio receiver installed in a van at Litchborough (just off the A5 about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Daventry) to receive signals bounced off a metal-clad Handley Page Heyford bomber flying across the radio transmissions. The interference picked up from the aircraft allowed its approximate navigational position to be estimated, and therefore proved that it was possible to detect the position of aircraft using radio waves. The success of the experiment persuaded the British government to fund the development of a network of full scale radar stations on the south coast of England, which became known as Chain Home, which provided a decisive advantage to the RAF in the Battle of Britain in 1940.[25]
Steep Hill in LincolnFox hunting is historically linked with the East Midlands
Parts of the East Midlands use a distinctive form of spoken dialect and accent. It also has some history in the beginnings of Received Pronunciation and southern England accents. However, spoken dialect and accent in the northern area of the East Midlands is far more similar to Northern English.
Identity
There is no modern Midlander, or East Midlander, identity. As Robert Shore wrote: "no one is more sceptical about the existence of an overarching Midland identity than Midlanders themselves."[26] Inhabitants of the East Midlands tend to identify themselves either on a county or town basis, regarding the East Midlands as simply a bureaucratic area that lumps together dissimilar places. In the North of the region, in areas such as North Nottinghamshire and North Derbyshire, people culturally identify as Northerners. For example, a study by YouGov in 2018 found that a quarter of the inhabitants of the region identified as Northerners.[27]
A new area of the North Midlands has been proposed, but this has not taken off. In Bassetlaw, the most northern local authority in the East Midlands area, many of the shared services such as NHS are with South Yorkshire, not with other Midlands areas. The television signal comes mainly from the Emley Moor transmitting station, which broadcasts local news from BBC Look North and Calendar News. And its officially designated BBC Local Radio station in terms of radio coverage is BBC Radio Sheffield. In 2016 Bassetlaw District Council voted to become part of the Sheffield City Region because of the strong local ties.[28]
Lord Byron and D. H. Lawrence are perhaps the region's best known authors, although the latter only gained full recognition in the late 20th century. The Key Words Reading Scheme (Peter and Jane) was first produced in 1964 by Ladybird of Loughborough and is still in print. The books originated in 1948 with an idea from Douglas Keen of Heanor; the first was British Birds and Their Nests. Ladybird Books were published in Loughborough throughout their 1960s and 1970s heyday, with the site closing in 1998.
Joseph Wright of Derby was an artist whose paintings symbolised the struggle between science and religious values in the Age of Enlightenment. He was also suggested to be "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".
Charles Frederick Worth, born in Lincolnshire in 1825, is considered to be the founder of Parisian haute couture, ostensibly as the world's first true fashion designer.
The region can claim the world's first factory, Sir Richard Arkwright's Cromford Mill. Additionally, the world's oldest working factory can also be found in the area, producing textiles at Lea Bridge, owned by John Smedley. Both sites are part of the region's only World Heritage Site, the Derwent Valley Mills. An opportunist employee of the Derbyshire textile factories, Samuel Slater of Belper saw his chance and (illegally) eloped in 1789 to Rhode Island in the US after memorising the layout of the textile machinery while working at Jedediah Strutt's Milford Mill. He was warmly welcomed by the inhabitants of the newly formed USA, so much so that he was later named the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution".
Britain's hosiery and knitwear industry was largely based in the region, and in the 1980s it had more textile workers than any other British region. The stocking frame was invented 1587 in Calverton, Nottinghamshire by Rev William Lee; these were the first known knitting machines and heralded the industrial revolution by providing the necessary machinery. The world's first (horse-powered) cotton mill was built in central Nottingham in 1768. Marvel's Mill in Northampton was the first cotton mill to be powered by water.
John Barber of Nottinghamshire had invented a simple gas turbine in 1791 (when living in Nuneaton). Lincoln was the site of the first tank (first built on 8 September 1915, Little Willie was the first tank, and is the oldest surviving tank in the world, originally called the No.1 Lincoln Machine), and Grantham the first diesel engine (in 1892). The jet engine was first developed in the region in Lutterworth and Whetstone, with the VTOL engine also (initially) developed in Hucknall. The first jet aircraft flew from RAF Cranwell in May 1941. During the Second World War, Derby was an important strategic location, as it was in Derby that Rolls-Royce developed and manufactured their iconic Merlin aero-engine. During the Second World War, all of R-R's engineering staff had been transferred to Belper.
The innovative but aborted APT, designed in Derby, seen here in May 1980
At its peak, Corby Steelworks was the largest in Britain. The collapsible baby buggy was invented in 1965 at Barby, Northamptonshire by Owen Maclaren. Ford's £8 million Daventry Parts Distribution Centre (Ford Parts Centre) was fully opened on 6 September 1972, the first southern section opened in 1968, and was the UK's largest building by floor area for many years at 36.7 acres (149,000 m2), and is situated opposite the Cummins factory.
How a zoom lens works; the principle was largely first invented in Leicester
The largest camera in the world was built in 1957 in Derby for Rolls-Royce, which weighed 27 tonnes and was around 8 feet (2.4 m) high, 8 feet (2.4 m) wide and 35 feet (11 m) long, with a 63-inch (1,600 mm) lens made by Cooke Apochromatic. Cooke Optics and Taylor-Hobson were major supplier of lenses for Hollywood; Star Wars was filmed with their lenses, filmed in England. Horace W. Lee invented the inverted telephoto lens (known as the Angénieux retrofocus) in 1931, lengthening the back focal length of the camera for the 1930s Technicolor Process and for vignetting.
Arthur Warmisham of Taylor & Hobson invented the first non-telescopic 35 mm zoom lens, the Cooke Varo 40– 120mm Lens, in a camera manufactured by Bell & Howell of the US. The popular 35 mm Eyemo film camera came with Cooke lenses. Much of World War II aerial photography, where definition was important, was through Cooke lenses, due to their Apochromatic process. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Cooke Speed Panchro lenses were the most popular choice for cinema films, then from the 1970s their Varotal zoom lens, which would win Gordon Henry Cook the 1988 Gordon E. Sawyer Award at the Oscars. Harold Hopkins (physicist), of Leicester, also did important work on the zoom lens (he largely invented it) and fibre-optics.
J. P. Knight of Nottingham is credited with inventing green and red traffic lights, installed in London on 9 December 1868, but these lasted only three weeks; traffic lights would be introduced only from the 1920s, again in London (from an American-led design scheme). The first modern-day traffic lights were installed in Piccadilly from August 1926. Edgar Purnell Hooley, a Nottinghamshire surveyor, in 1901 was in Denby and found a stretch of road surface that was smooth from an accidental leak of tar over the surface. He patented a process of mixing tar with chipped stones in 1902, forming Tarmac, a name which he patented. Radcliffe Road (A6011) in West Bridgford in 1902 was the first tarmac road (5 miles or 8.0 kilometres long) in the world.
Mettoy was a famous firm in the St James area of Northampton, which from 1933 produced Corgi toys (mostly made in Swansea and designed in Northampton), and in the 1970s it made the space hopper; the company collapsed in 1983, moving to Swansea. In Leicestershire was Palitoy, another world-famous firm in Coalville; General Mills bought it in 1968, but production ceased in 1984 and the site was closed by Hasbro in 1994. Pedigree Dolls & Toys (Sindy) was in Wellingborough, closing in 1982. The first plastic DVD case was made in Corby by Amaray. Britain's first out-of-town shopping centre was opened in November 1964 by GEM at West Bridgford, on a site now owned by ASDA.
Much integrated circuit and semiconductor research was carried out by Plessey at Caswell near Towcester, ahead of much of what was being achieved in America by Jack Kilby; Plessey invented a model of the integrated circuit in 1957. Caswell was later a site for manufacturing monolithic microwave integrated circuits in the 1990s by Marconi. On 15 December 1966, the first electronic telephone exchange in Europe opened at Ambergate in Derbyshire.
Most of the region was protected by a solitary RAF station, RAF Digby near Sleaford, part of No. 12 Group RAF and controlled from RAF Watnall. Within the East Midlands, only Nottingham was heavily bombed during the Second World War's Blitz, due to the presence of a large Royal Ordnancefactory. However, much of the aerial obliteration of Germany was directed from the region, with two bomber groups based in Lincolnshire (No.1 and No.5), and a few squadrons in South Nottinghamshire. The proliferation of Second World War airfields in Lincolnshire has led to it being known as Bomber County.
Regional governance
This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (February 2023)
For teenage pregnancy rates in the region, Nottingham is the top-tier authority. Of the council districts, Corby has the highest rate. Of the top-tier authorities, Rutland has the lowest rate for any district in England. The council district with the lowest rate is South Northamptonshire, although it has a rate greater than that of Rutland. Rutland has the highest total fertility rate for British counties (top-tier authorities). The borough of Boston has the highest TFR for district councils.
The region has the second-lowest overall population density in England (after South West England), eased by the low population density of Lincolnshire and Rutland. In 2007, the region had a lower percentage of degree-educated people than the English average.[30] Of the region's population, 29.5 per cent live in rural areas.
The region as a whole is less deprived than the West Midlands and regions in the North of England.[36] By measurement of Lower Layer Super Output Areas, the East Midlands has more in common with the South of England (except London) than the North, in that it has more areas in the 20 per cent least deprived areas than the 20 per cent most deprived areas, but less so than regions in Southern England. This has been explained by academic statisticians, who claim the area straddles the north–south divide.[37]
The region does not show typical economic characteristics of Northern England (which the West Midlands does), although it is not as affluent as large parts of the South of England. Economically, the East Midlands bears a similarity to South West England.
In March 2011, the average unemployment claimant count for the region was 3.6 per cent. Nottingham and Leicester were the highest with 5.8 per cent each. Next were Corby and Lincoln with 4.9 per cent. The lowest were Rutland and South Northamptonshire with 1.4 per cent each, and Harborough, with 1.6 per cent.[38]
Elections
General election results in 2017
At the 2015 general election, 43 per cent of the region's electorate voted Conservative, 32 per cent Labour, 16 per cent UKIP, 6% Liberal Democrat and 3 per cent Green. The division of seats is less equally spread, with 32 Conservative and 14 Labour, and the geographic spread is even more weighted towards the Conservatives, with Labour's 14 seats being in Derby (1), Leicester (3), Nottingham (4) and the East Midlands coalfield (6) – most of these, except Leicester, are in the area defined as the economic North of England, and are in geographically smaller seats. Northamptonshire, Rutland and Lincolnshire are completely Conservative. The region had a 0.2 per cent swing from Labour to Conservative.
In 2009, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire county councils changed control from Labour to Conservative. From 1993 to 2005, Northampton was controlled by Labour, and is now controlled by the Conservatives. Lincolnshire and Leicestershire have historically been Conservative controlled and hence all the main county councils are now Conservative controlled.
Number of MPs returned per party, total 46 (situation at end of parliament in brackets)
UK Coal (formerly RJB Mining) was based in Styrrup near Harworth. The north part of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire used to have many coal mines, and the last two pits producing in Nottinghamshire were near Market Warsop and Ollerton
RPC Group in Rushden opposite a Waitrose, on the A6, is a large (international, the largest of its type in Europe) packaging company, and make the bottles for Heinz Tomato Ketchup. Granger's, on the Clover Nook Industrial Estate off the A38 at Pinxton, make Cherry Blossom shoe polish. Fusion Provida based on B6057/A61 junction in Chesterfield makes pipe jointings and electrofusion fittings for the oil and gas industry. Vaillant UK (former Hepworth Heating before 2002, with headquarters in Remscheid) make Glow-worm boilers on the A609 near Belper School.
Hoval, based on the B6166 (former A46) near Newark Northgate station, make industrial boilers in Lincoln for international customers, and have a Royal Warrant. Jayplas, the UK's biggest plastic recycling company is based in Great Oakley, south of Corby off the A6014, with a plastic recycling site in South Normanton. Fairline Boats are based on the Nene in Oundle off the A605 bypass; nearby are Poclain Hydraulics UK on the Nene Business Park.
Spector Lumenex (part of Tyco) make warning systems off the B684 in Mapperley. Flowserve UK (former Worthington-Simpson, then Ingersoll-Dresser) in Balderton are the largest manufacturer of industrial pumps in the UK. Hako Machines UK, a Schleswig-Holstein supplier of industrial sweepers and road cleaners are in Crick. Bostik, which from 1930 until 1990, was owned by British United Shoe Machinery of Leicester, still has a main factory and research site (its construction division) in Belgrave; until 1962 it was made by BB Chemical, with its other main brand being the water-resistant Prestik for making sealing strips.
Taylor Hobson (an international metrology company) is north of the A563 in former Thurmaston (inside Leicester), bought by Ametek in 2004; with a former division of the company, Cooke Optics, a camera lens manufacturer, further north in Thurmaston on the west side of the railway. The Gent fire alarm company, now owned by Honeywell since 2005, is off the A563 near the A6030 roundabout in the north of Humberstone. Matsuura Machinery UK (CNC machine tools) is towards Morrisons in Coalville.
Ardagh (originally Metal Box from 1962, then Impress Group) make tin cans south of the A38, off the B6139, north of Fabrikat; Pandrol UK in Worksop make resilient rail fastenings. ThyssenKrupp UK is in Lenton, off the A52, and further north is ZF Services UK (wind turbine and automotive gears). At the A6019/A453 south of the tax office in Nottingham is Thomas & Betts UK (former W & J Furse, and bought by ABB in 2012), a world leader in lightning and earthing protection.
Construction and building materials
Topps Tiles are on Grove Park in Enderby, with the national distribution centre of British Gas, the largest warehouse of gas spare parts in Europe, next door. Aggregate Industries (now part of LafargeHolcim since July 2015, when Paris-based Lafarge merged with Swiss-based Holcim) is based at Bardon Hall in Bardon, next to the 912-foot (278 m) Bardon Hill, Leicestershire's highest point. Mountsorrel has the largest granite quarry in Europe, owned by the French company, Lafarge (owned by Redland plc until 1997). BPB plc (British Plasterboard), the world's largest manufacturer of plasterboard (calcium sulphate) who own British Gypsum, is based in East Leake, Nottinghamshire. They also have a large site at Barrow upon Soar. Artex Ltd., part of the same company, is in Ruddington.
National Grid plc has its main Ofsted-checked Eakring Training Centre in Nottinghamshire, where trainees learn how to build electricity pylons, including the new T pylon; National Grid has other training sites in Hollinwood and Hitchin
Premier Pitches of Nether Handley, off the A6052 at Unstone in northeast Derbyshire, made the pitch for Wembley Stadium, as well as for many other main pitches. Hewitt Sportsturf, just south of Whetstone next to the M1 in Cosby, supplied the turf (360 rolls) for the Olympic Stadium in March 2011, although it was grown near Scunthorpe; a division of the company, Petersfield Growing Mediums, which supplies compost, has a Royal Warrant. Werner UK (Britain's leading manufacturer of metal step ladders) moved its ABRU site, off the A6 in the south of Belper, to Essex in 2016.
Speedo International Limited is on the ng2 business park on Queens Drive (near Experian, formerly in Bobbers Mill on the A610 near Basford before 2010). Its LZR Racer suit helped Michael Phelps win eight golds at the 2008 Olympics. In Enderby, on the B582 close to the M69 and a large electricity substation, is Next, created by George Davies in 1981, which is the largest company in the region (and the Midlands) by number of employees with 59,000, and has the second largest turnover (£3 billion) of companies headquartered in the region, after Boots (£6 billion).[citation needed]
Headquarters of Next Retailing in July 2007 at Enderby, next to the M69; the largest company by turnover in the Midlands
Boden (clothing) is on the Meridian estate in Leicester. Wolsey (clothing) is off the A563 in the northeast of Leicester, east of Rushey Mead. Scott Nichol make traditional socks in Hinckley. Per Una have a factory near Cossington and the A46/A607 junction. Much of Britain's lingerie and hosiery is made in the region. Guilford Europe (former Guilford Kapwood), at Somercotes, makes fabric (warp knitting) for sports clothing and automotive products, and have been owned by Lear Corporation since 2012.
Sports Direct is based in Shirebrook on an old Bolsover coal mine. At the Trent Business Centre is Sunspel, who introduced the t-shirt to the British market; nearby Meadowmead make premium furniture off the B6540, and Aga Rangemaster Group make kitchen sinks. Duresta Upholstery is in Long Eaton, with a factory of DFS opposite. W&G Sissons on the Chesterfield Est, now owned by Franke, has been the UK's largest manufacturer of stainless steel sinks since the 1950s. Parker Knoll make high-end furniture off the B6016 on the Greenhill Industrial Estate, south of Alfreton. Gunn & Moore (GM), off the A612 north of Trent Bridge cricket ground, is an exclusive cricket bat manufacturer.
John Smedley factory at Lea Mills: the oldest continuously working factory in the world
Wild Country, on the Tideswell Industrial Estate off the B6049, are the UK's leading manufacturer of rock-climbing equipment. Blacks Leisure Group (previous owner of Blacks and Millets before financial failure and takeover by JD Sports) was based in Duston, in the west of Northampton, and is now off the A45 in the east of the town on the Swan Valley Ind Est, near the UK & Ireland base of Levi Strauss & Co. Joules country clothing is on the A4304, east of Market Harborough at The Point near the A6 roundabout and the Northamptonshire boundary at Dingley.
George at Asda, based at Lutterworth, in 2009 overtook M&S to become Britain's leading fashion retailer. TW Kempton are a main manufacturer of uniforms for the armed and police services opposite the National Space Centre on the A6 in north Leicester; they also own the Fortis body armour brand and make PASGT nylon fibre helmets for troops.
Retail
Wilko head office is at Manton, Worksop; it was founded by James Kemsey Wilkinson in Leicester in 1930. In Lenton, are the head offices of Games Workshop, the producers of Warhammer miniatures. Pendragon PLC, the car dealership and the Sherwood Park industrial area is in Annesley. Sytner Group is in Enderby, a prestige car retailer. Dunelm Group, the furnishings company, is based on the A607 next to Lafarge in Syston; the company is named after Bill Adderley's house on Greenhill Road in Coalville; nearby is Pukka Pies. In Leicester is the nearly-defunct photographic equipment company Jessops, bought and relaunched as Jessops Europe by businessman Peter Jones and Fox's Confectionery (maker of Fox's Glacier Mints), with both based near each other on the Braunstone Frith estate. Also in Leicester are the bookmaker Mark Jarvis (next to Radio Leicester), the European HQ of National Car Rental, and Otis UK (lifts, near the National Space Centre on the A6). Jacobs is on the Meridian Business Park in Braunstone, next to the M1. Machine Mart is based on the A60 near BioCity in Nottingham. East of the Walkers plant in Beaumont Leys is Office Depot UK (and Viking Direct UK) on the Bursom Industrial Estate. Crown Crest in Belgrave owns Poundstretcher. Goldsmiths (jewellers) are based at the western end of Braunstone Frith, off the B5380.
Maclaren, the pushchair maker, is near the M1 next to Long Buckby railway station; BabyStyle is in Sileby. There are three main distribution centres in the area at Magna Park in Leicestershire (the largest of its kind in Europe), and Brackmills and the Daventry International Railfreight Terminal in Northamptonshire. J D Wetherspoon have their main distribution centre at Daventry, and Currys (founded in Leicester in 1888 on Belgrave Gate) have theirs at Newark-on-Trent. Oxford University Press have their national distribution centre at North Kettering Business Park at the A6003 roundabout on the A43 Kettering bypass (in Rushton). Monsoon Accessorize have their national distribution centre to the east on Octavian Park in Irchester next to A45. In Kilsby on the DIRFT estate, Tesco have their Daventry Grocery, the largest supermarket depot in the country, west of the A5 and north of the WCML. North of the A428 is Tesco's Clothing Distribution Centre.
Food processing
Oxo factory (former Batchelors) on the Dukeries Industrial Estate in Worksop
Carlsberg Brewery at the A428/A508 junction in Northampton, on the former Phipps NBC site, also bottles Tuborg and San Migiuel; all modern lagers come from a Carlsberg yeast developed in 1883
The crisp company Walkers (owned by PepsiCo and the UK's biggest grocery brand) makes 10 million bags of crisps a day at the biggest crisp factory in the world at Beaumont Leys. Beaumont Park is PepsiCo's main research centre in the UK. Pork Farms is in Lenton, Nottingham. Thorntons is a big employer south of Alfreton in Swanwick on a former colliery, since the factory opened in 1985. At Latimer Park (Burton Latimer) at the A6/A14 junction is Alpro, who make soya milk products, and a huge Morrisons depot. To the west is Weetabix, which sources its wheat from a 50-mile (80 km) radius around Kettering, and also make Weetos in Corby; Ready Brek was bought from Lyons in 1990.
Greencore Prepared Foods on Moulton Park make half of M&S's sandwiches and sandwich filler pots. Sealord UK make all of Waitrose's white fish products near Caistor. Kettleby Foods, part of Samworth Brothers, make most of Tesco's ready meals in Melton Mowbray. PAS (Grantham) (owned by McCain) make chips at Easton. Isoma of Swadlincote makes food handling equipment; Interlevin Refrigeration at Castle Donington is near the M&S distribution centre; Parry Catering and Fabrication in Draycott make catering appliances and equipment.
Roquette (former ABF-owned ABR Foods) produce starch and bioethanol at Corby near RS Components, and a Morrisons frozen-food depot is near Weldon. Opposite Charles Lawrence in Newark, Laurens Patisseries (owned by Bakkavör UK) are Europe's largest manufacturer of cream cakes. Kerry Ingredients make Homepride flour in Gainsborough.
Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) is one of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe, and the largest hospital in the UK. The CT scanner (X-ray computed tomography) was invented by Newark's Sir Godfrey Hounsfield. Both inventions received Nobel Prizes for Medicine (2003 for MRI and 1979 for CT). Glenfield Hospital (which comes under the UHL NHS Trust) is one of England's main hospitals for coronary care and respiratory diseases; it has a strong international reputation for medical research in cardiac and respiratory health and carried out the world's first percutaneous coronary intervention procedure on a two-year-old child in August 2012 with the largest ECMO unit in the UK.[citation needed]
BioCity Nottingham is an important centre for cutting-edge bioscience companies. Slimming World, who help people lose weight, is in Pinxton, near Alfreton off the A38; on the other side of the railway NHS Supply Chain was formed in 2006 on the Cotes Park Industrial Estate in Somercotes; nearby Diversey UK (former JohnsonDiversey) has a manufacturing plant, and is based at the A43/A4500 junction at Weston Favell. Dalatek Plastics make pharmaceutical containers off the B6022 on the Maun Valley Ind Park at Sutton in Ashfield next to the railway.[citation needed]
Belkin UK (and Linksys) UK is along the A45 in Rushden, Misco is in Wellingborough, and RS Components is in Corby. Pegasus Software, producer of well-known accounting software, is off the A509 in the south of Kettering. Serif Europe is in West Bridgford; Serif developed PagePlus in the 1990s which was the first cheap DTP software. AVG Technologies has its UK head office on Newark's industrial estate. Experian have their large data centre at Fairham House south of Ruddington, with two others in Texas and Brazil. The Ruddington site is connected by a 640 Gbpsdark fibre and runs on IBM's z10 with Tivoli. Inter-Activa is at the LCB Depot in Leicester city centre.
Castle Meadow Campus is the name of a large HMRC site in Nottingham, being the national arm of HMRC that looks after the Enterprise Investment Scheme, Corporate Venturing Scheme, Venture Capital Trusts, and Enterprise Management Incentives, HMRC's Pension Schemes Services, and the Residency department, which deals with Double Taxation Treaties and inheritance tax. It has the Valuation Office Agency for the East Midlands and East of England. Royal Mail have a main administrative centre at Rowland Hill House, opposite the Queen's Park Sports Centre in Chesterfield (HR, pensions, and Vehicle Services). Royal Mail have their National Distribution Centre at Crick, next to the M1. The Bank of England's MPC Agency for the East Midlands is sited on the ng2 estate, near Experian and its economic data.
NatWest Group has a documents centre (Williams Lea) in Shepshed, where it prints its statements for England and Wales. Orion Security Print, north of Stanton steel works in Ilkeston, produces Odeon cinema tickets and library cards. An office of RR Donnelley on the B5366 in the west of South Wigston, next to the railway, deals with all of Barclaycard's mail. Barclaycard have their Payment Acceptance Centre next to the A45 in Northampton. The Money Shop (owned by Dollar Financial Group) issue payday loans and are the UK's leading cheque-cashing service, being at Castlebridge, Nottingham, north of ng2 and next to the railway. GeoAmey (prisoner transport) are in Whetstone.
After Norfolk, Lincolnshire is the second biggest potato producer in the country, and grows 30% of the country's vegetables. Interflora has its UK HQ in Sleaford; Lincolnshire is the world's leading producer of daffodils (narcissus family); 40% of the flowers bought in the UK are grown there; Butters Group supply many bulbs (Amaryllis) from Low Fulney. The county produces each year enough sugar beet for 350 million bags of sugar and enough wheat for 250 million loaves. Fowler-Welch Coolchain are based in Spalding, as is the UK operation of Bakkavör (former Geest) which is the UK's largest provider of fresh prepared foods.[41]
Princes (former Premier Foods) have a large operation in Little Sutton near to Long Sutton canning vegetables with Fray Bentos meat, and Batchelors peas. Magnadata Group in Boston have the contract for the UK's rail tickets (for ATOC); the orange-style tickets have been in operation since 1990. Silver Spoon's Bardney plant makes the market-leading Askey's dessert toppings. John Deere have their UK base at Langar on the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire boundary next to the former RAF Langar. The British Geological Survey is in Keyworth. Weatherbys in Wellingborough administer the British horseracing industry, having produced the General Stud Book since 1791.
Skegness and the Lincolnshire coast provides seaside entertainment for many people in the East Midlands with its Butlins 200-acre resort at Ingoldmells. Nottingham and Leicester are both popular night time destinations.
Center Parcs UK opened their first leisure facility at the Sherwood Holiday Village site at Rufford, near Ollerton, together with their headquarters and call centre in Sherwood Energy Village business park, built upon the former Ollerton Colliery site in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.[42][43]
The YHA is based in Matlock. Gala Bingo is based in Nottingham; Coral have over 1,800 UK shops. Twycross Zoo is just south of Measham in Leicestershire, and the National Space Centre is in Belgrave in north Leicester.[44]Carlsbro (electronics and speakers) are at South Normanton, on the east side of the M1, at the B6406/A38 junction. Peavey Electronics UK (loudspeakers), are off the A6003, in the southwest of Corby.
Most secondary schools in the East Midlands are comprehensives, although Lincolnshire retains fifteen state grammar schools.
There are around 180,000 students in the region's secondary schools; this is the second lowest number of students in a region in England, after the North East, and more than 100,000 lower than the figure for the West Midlands. Some of the East Midlands' urban secondary schools hold truancy rates above that of the national average, whereas truancy rates in the region's rural secondary schools tend to be lower than the national average.
Nottingham City schools tend to perform less well in terms of GCSE standards, with some Leicester schools suffering a similar problem. Rutland (amongst the highest-performing areas in the region where GCSE standards are concerned) has one of the highest percentages of pupils reaching the threshold of five grade A–C GCSEs (including Maths and English) in England. On a District Council level, Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire tends to attain some of the region's best GCSE results. Leicestershire and Derbyshire also regularly tend to produce GCSE results at a standard greater than the national average.
At A-level, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire regularly generate results greater than the national average. Nottingham tends to produce better results at A-level than it does at GCSE.
The region's largest university by student population, with around 33,000 students. The university is often ranked in the British top seven for research power. It is famous for its academic reputation, consistently ranking highly in university league tables. It is the only Russell Group university in the East Midlands. The university has produced several Nobel Prize winners.
In addition to its more traditional academic work, Loughborough University is well-regarded for its sporting heritage. One notable sporting alumna is British gold-medallist Paula Radcliffe. The British Olympic athletics team trained at the university as part of their preparations for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The adidas Jabulani football, the official football for the 2010 World Cup, was designed in the university's Sports Technology Institute.[47]
Nottingham Trent University is the East Midlands' second largest university (and one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom), with a student population of approximately 24,000.
The university has established itself as a leading research-led university and has been named University of the Year of 2008 by the Times Higher Education. The University of Leicester is also the only university ever to have won a Times Higher Education award in seven consecutive years. The university is most famous for the invention of genetic fingerprinting DNA, the discovery of the remains of King Richard III and Space research. It houses Europe's biggest academic centre for space research, in which space probes have been built, most notably the Mars Lander Beagle 2, which was built in collaboration with the Open University. It is a founding partner of the National Space Centre which is based in Leicester.
The region's third largest university. It is a public research and teaching university. The university has one of the largest numbers of Teacher Fellows of any UK university and was awarded Centre of Excellence status for its performance practice teaching and student support
Formerly a centre and college for teacher training, Derby University works closely with businesses of the area with its University of Derby–Corporate programme and has a history of academics dating back to 1851.
The newest university in the East Midlands, formerly a university college.
The region has the lowest proportion of part-time students in England. The region has a higher influx of young people into the region at the university stage than out of the region into other regions' universities. Only 25% of the region's students undertaking a first degree are native to the region.
The first 1978 BDO World Darts Championship was held in Nottingham, in February 1978, being largely the idea of Nick Hunter, a BBC sports producer, and the event first introduced Sid Waddell.
Admiral Sportswear at Wigston in Leicestershire made the England football strip from 1974 to 1982, when the company went bankrupt; in 1974 it was the first company to introduce replica kits. Umbro took over the England kit after the 1982 World Cup in 1984. Nike make the England kit today.
The East Midlands is home to several professional and semi-professional association football (soccer) clubs.
The East Midlands is home to two top-tier (Aviva Premiership) clubs.
Leicester Tigers are an English rugby union club based in Leicester at the Welford Road stadium and play in the Aviva Premiership. They were formed in 1880; their colours are green, burgundy and white. Leicester Tigers are one of the most successful Rugby Union teams in Europe and the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, having won the European Cup twice, the first tier of English rugby ten times, and the Anglo-Welsh Cup seven times.
Northampton Saints are a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. They were formed in 1880, and play in black, green, and gold colours. The team play their home games at Franklin's Gardens, which has a capacity of 15,500. Their biggest rivals are Leicester Tigers.
The Amateur Swimming Association is the world's first swimming governing body, founded 1869, now based in Loughborough. British Swimming have one of its three Intensive Training Centres at Loughborough University's Loughborough Pool in their Sport Development Centre.
Most of Northamptonshire can receive Central News East, with western parts of the county (Daventry) receiving Central News West, and Southern parts of the county (around Brackley and Towcester) receiving the Thames Valley micro-region of ITV Meridian (the former Central South region) and the Oxford opt-out of BBC South Today from Oxford. Central News East also covers the East Midlands, broadcasting from Lenton Lane in Nottingham from March 1984. The studios were closed and is now the King's Meadow Campus of the University of Nottingham. These studios had been responsible for Family Fortunes and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Central News East continues, broadcasting from ITV Central's Birmingham Studios.
Northamptonshire has Anglia Television's Anglia Tonight programme and most of Lincolnshire and eastern parts of Nottinghamshire has Yorkshire Television's Calendar. For Lincolnshire and South and East Yorkshire. Digital switchover took place in April 2011 for the Nottingham and Northampton areas; Waltham and Belmont (including the local repeater stations) changed in late August 2011. MATV, based in Leicester, caters to the area's large South Asian population.
National radio on DAB and FM comes from Sutton Coldfield in the west,Belmont (the tallest structure in the region) in the northeast, and Holme Moss in the northwest.
There are many regional lifestyle publications, the largest and most widely read being Life&Style Magazine, FHP Magazine, Nottinghamshire Life and City Life and County Living. National magazine publishers in the region include Key Publishing, Mortons of Horncastle and Bourne Publishing Group.
Allen, R.C. Enclosure and the Yeoman: the Agricultural Development of the South Midlands 1450-1850 (Oxford UP, 1992)
Beckett, John V. The East Midlands from AD 1000 (Addison-Wesley Longman, 1988).
Dewindt, Edwin Brezett, and Edwin Brezette DeWindt. Land and people in Holywell-cum-Needingworth: structures of tenure and patterns of social organization in an East Midlands village, 1252-1457 (PIMS, 1972).
Laughton, Jane, Evan Jones, and Christopher Dyer. "The urban hierarchy in the later Middle Ages: a study of the East Midlands." Urban history (2001): 331–357.
McWhirr, Alan. The Early Military History of the Roman East Midlands (1970) online.
Stafford, Pauline. The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester University, 1985).
Stobart, Jon. "Regions, Localities, and Industrialisation: Evidence from the East Midlands Circa 1780–1840." Environment and Planning A 33.7 (2001): 1305–1325.
Tompkins, Matthew. Peasant society in a midlands manor, Great Horwood 1400-1600 (PhD Diss. U of Leicester, 2006) online.
Townsend, Claire. "County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830." Journal of Historical Geography 32.2 (2006): 291–312.
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