East Midlands Totally Explained

The East Midlands is one of the regions of England and consists of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It consists of the combined area of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and most of Lincolnshire.
The highest point in the region is Kinder Scout, in the Derbyshire Peak District at 2,088 ft (636 m). A looser definition of the East Midlands would include the City of Peterborough, Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire.
Financial funding decisions for the East Midlands (usually public construction schemes) are taken at the East Midlands Regional Assembly, based in Melton Mowbray. It isn't an elected chamber, but a quango.

Population and settlement

Its main settlements are Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Derby, Northampton, Mansfield and Chesterfield. Leicester is officially the largest city in the region, although the largest conurbation is the Nottingham Urban Area.

Transport

East Midlands Airport in North West Leicestershire is situated between the three main cities of Derby, Leicester and Nottingham.
Two of the north-south mainline railways serve the region, The Midland Main Line (operated by Midland Mainline) in the west and the East Coast Mainline (operated by GNER) in the east. Both companies operate high-speed trains to London. The main south west-north east Cross Country Route (MR) (operated by Virgin Trains) run through Birmingham and Derby. East-west routes are provided by the Nottingham - Skegness, Liverpool - Norwich (through Nottingham), and Birmingham - Stansted Airport (through Leicester) routes; these last two routes are the essentially the only east-west routes in the section of England between Sheffield and London, both routes meeting at Peterborough.
The M1 motorway also serves the three largest conurbations. In the east, the A1 is an important, often overcrowded route for the east coast ports and is important for supplying much of the UK's agricultural production. The A46 since Roman times provided a connection between the south west and north east of the region, although around Newark, it has difficulty coping with capacity. East-west routes by road in the region are essentially single-carriageway roads, with only the dual-carriageway A14 skirting the northern part of Northamptonshire.

History

A historical basis for such an area exists in the Five Burghs of the Danelaw. The current government office region was created in 1994.

Local government

The official region consists of the following subdivisions:

Ceremonial county	Shire county /unitary	Districts
Derbyshire	1. Derbyshire	High Peak, Derbyshire Dales South Derbyshire, Erewash Amber Valley, North East Derbyshire Chesterfield, Bolsover
Derbyshire	2. Derby
Nottinghamshire	3. Nottinghamshire	Rushcliffe, Broxtowe Ashfield, Gedling Newark and Sherwood, Mansfield Bassetlaw
Nottinghamshire	4. Nottingham
Lincolnshire	5. Lincolnshire	Lincoln, North Kesteven South Kesteven, South Holland, Boston, East Lindsey, West Lindsey
Leicestershire	6. Leicestershire	Charnwood, Melton Harborough, Oadby and Wigston Blaby, Hinckley and Bosworth North West Leicestershire
Leicestershire	7. Leicester
8. Rutland
9. Northamptonshire		South Northamptonshire, Northampton Daventry, Wellingborough Kettering, Corby East Northamptonshire

MEPs

The East Midlands is also a six-member constituency for the European Parliament.

Economy

Main employers in the region include Weetabix at Burton Latimer. For engineering, there's Rolls-Royce in Derby, Siemens in Lincoln, Triumph Motorcycles in Hinckley, and Caterpillar has a large factory on an old airfield near Desford. The jet engine was first developed in the region in Lutterworth. The north part of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire used to have many coal mines, and there are two pits still producing in Nottinghamshire near Mansfield. Now Thorntons is a big employer at Alfreton, and Wilkinson is at Worksop. Boots is based in Lenton in Nottingham, as well as the head office of Games Workshop, the producers of Warhammer miniatures. Many footwear companies such as Shoe Zone and Stead and Simpson, are based in Leicester, as is the clothing company, Next and the crisp company Walkers. Alliance & Leicester is based in Narborough. Carlsberg is brewed in Northampton, and the Black Leisure Group (owner of Blacks and Millets) is based in Duston, to the west of the city. Midland Mainline has its head office in Derby. Lincolnshire and Rutland are very agricultural, with much of the UK's arable crops grown in this area. The RAF have many bases in this area too, with the main RAF College at Cranwell near Sleaford. Skegness provides seaside entertainment for many people in the East Midlands with its Butlins resort. Nottingham is a popular night time destination (often for people outside of the East Midlands). The former East Midlands Electricity is now owned by E.ON UK (supply) and Central Networks (distribution).

Education

There is a mixture of education across the East Midlands - mostly comprehensive secondary schools, except Lincolnshire has fifteen state grammar schools (as well as some comprehensive schools). For GCSE results, City of Nottingham schools are the worst performing, with Leicester schools a close second. Rutland (the best area for GCSEs) has one of the highest percentages of pupils (Buckinghamshire is the highest) reaching the threshold of five grades A-C (including Maths and English) in England; it's almost twice the percentage value of schools in Leicester, although the highest performing district council area is Derbyshire Dales. Leicestershire and Lincolnshire also have GCSE results above the UK average. At A level, Lincolnshire performs the best, and with schools in Nottingham, has results above the UK average; Nottingham has much better results at A level than those at GCSE on average. This describes the city quite accurately - it has the largest group of under-achieving school pupils in the East Midlands, but yet has one of the highest achieving groups of school pupils as well, giving a salient socio-economic diversity of almost chasmic proportions.

Top ten state schools in the East Midlands (2006 A level results)

Local Media

The BBC East Midlands region of BBC Television, based in Nottingham, produces several regional television programmes including the news programme East Midlands Today. This excludes most of Northamptonshire, north Nottinghamshire and north Derbyshire. Most of Lincolnshire is covered by the BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire region based in Hull, with its Look North programme. Derbyshire's High Peak is covered by BBC North West based in Manchester. Northamptonshire is part of the BBC East region based in Norwich and has the Look East programme. Central News East also covered 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 Nottingham University. These studios had been responsible for Family Fortunes and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Central News East still continues, broadcasting from ITV Central's Birmingham Studios. Northamptonshire has Anglia Television's Anglia Tonight programme and the north of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire has Yorkshire Television's Calendar.

MATV, based in Leicester, which caters to the area's large South Asian population.

BBC Radios Derby, Leicester, Lincolnshire, Northampton, Nottingham and Sheffield (for Chesterfield). BBC Radio Leicester was the first local radio station in the United Kingdom.

Many commercial radio stations: Leicester Sound, Trent FM (Nottingham) RAM FM (Derby and Burton-on-Trent), Heart 106 (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire), Peak FM (Chesterfield and North Derbyshire), Lincs FM (Lincolnshire and Newark-on-Trent), Oak 107 FM (Loughborough), Fosseway Radio (Hinckley), Rutland Radio, Boundary Sound (Newark), Mansfield 103.2 FM, Trax FM (Bassetlaw), High Peak Radio (Chapel-en-le-Frith), Northants 96, Connect 97.2 & 107.4 (Wellingborough), Sabras Radio, Hindu Sanskar Radio and 106.6 Smooth Radio (Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire).

Several newspapers, the largest of which include the Derby Evening Telegraph, Derbyshire Times, Leicester Mercury, Lincolnshire Echo, Northampton Chronicle and Echo, and Nottingham Evening Post.

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