Inmedieval times, South East England included much of theKingdom of Wessex, which was the precursor to the modern state ofEngland.Winchester was the capital of England after unification of the various states, including the kingdoms ofKent,Sussex andMercia. Winchester stopped being the administrative capital of England some time in the 13th century as its influence waned while theCity of London dominated commerce. The lastmonarch to be crowned at Winchester wasRichard II in 1377, although the last monarch to be crowned by theBishop of Winchester wasQueen Mary I in 1553.
Today, the region's close proximity to London has led to South East England becoming a prosperous economic hub with the largest economy of any region in the UK, after London. The region is home toGatwick Airport andHeathrow Airport (the UK's two busiest airports). The coastline along theEnglish Channel provides numerous ferry crossings to mainlandEurope. South East England is also known for its countryside, which includes two national parks: theNew Forest and theSouth Downs, as well as theNorth Downs, theChiltern Hills and part of theCotswolds. TheRiver Thames flows through the region and its basin is known as theThames Valley.
Bletchley Park in north Buckinghamshire was the principal Allied centre for codebreaking. TheColossus computer, arguably the world's first, began working on Lorentz codes on 5 February 1944, with Colossus 2 working from June 1944. The site was chosen, among other reasons, because it is at the junction of theVarsity Line (between Oxford and Cambridge) and theWest Coast Main Line. TheHarwell computer (Dekatron), now at theNational Museum of Computing at Bletchley, was built in 1949 and is believed to be the oldest working digital computer in the world.[8]
SirDavid N. Payne at the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre invented theerbium-doped fibre amplifier, a type ofoptical amplifier, in the mid-1980s, which became essential for the internet.Henry Moseley at Oxford in 1913 discovered hisMoseley's law ofX-ray spectra of chemical elements that enabled him to be the first to assign the correct atomic number to elements inperiodic table; he did not receive anyNobel Prize as it is not awarded posthumously (he was killed in 1915 at Gallipoli with the Royal Engineers).Carbon fibre was invented in 1963 at the RAE in Farnborough by a team led by William Watt. The ApolloLCGspace-suit cooling system originated mostly from work done at RAE Farnborough in the early 1960s.
SirJohn Herschel, son of the astronomer, from Kent, invented the termphotography in 1839, meaninglight writing.and discovered the firstphotographic fixer,sodium thiosulphate, known ashypo, also in 1839.
William Harvey of Folkestone, in Kent, discovered thecirculation of blood. The Lilly Research Centre in Windlesham, Berkshire, part ofEli Lilly, developedOlanzapine in 1996 (forbipolar disorder, selling around $5bn worldwide annually). Beecham Research Laboratories atBrockham Park in 1959 discoveredmeticillin (or methicillin), the first semi-synthetic penicillin (beta-lactamase stable), deriving from their discovery in 1958 of6-APA, the core constituent; the team, led by Prof George Rolinson, won theMullard Award in 1971.Bipyridine compounds (Paraquat-Gramoxone and Diquat) were discovered for herbicide use in 1954 byWilliam Boon at ICI's Plant Protection division at Jealott's Hill, being released onto the market in 1958. AZT/Retrovir (zidovudine) was first manufactured by Wellcome in 1987 in Kent; they also introduced Zovirax (aciclovir), and the naturally occurringdigoxin, acardiac glycoside. After a plane crashed near his house in Oxford in 1940, SirPeter Medawar helped the injured pilot, and in the process discoveredhomograft rejection, leading toorgan transplantation usingazathioprine. Viagra (Sildenafil) was synthesized at Pfizer in Sandwich, Kent.
The world's firstsubmarine telephone cable was laid between England and France in 1891 by HMTS Monarch, enabling London-Paris calls from April 1891. On 3 December 1992, Neil Papworth of Reading, an engineer fromSema Group Telecoms at Vodafone in Newbury, sent the world's first text message from his computer to an Orbitel 901 handset of Richard Jarvis, Vodafone's technical director.
The first public automatictelephone exchange in the UK was at Epsom telephone exchange from 18 May 1912. It was introduced as standard across the UK's 6,700 telephone exchanges in 1922, lasting for around 70 years; it could handle up to 500 lines. It used theStrowger design and was made byAutomatic Telephone Manufacturing Company of Liverpool.[9] The world's first automatic telephone exchange had opened inLa Porte, Indiana in November 1892.
BritNed connects from the Isle of Grain in Medway to theTenneT network in the Netherlands.
UK-Belgium 5, laid in 1986 from Kent, was the world's firstoptical fibre submarine cable, and is 36 miles long.
TheBritNed 1000MW power-supply submarine cable from Isle of Grain to Rotterdam, was built in 2009. TheHVDC Cross-Channel (2000MW) submarine cable was built in 1986. This is the world's highest-capacity submarine HVDC cable; it goes from France and lands near Folkestone, with the large transformer station (built by GEC) squeezed between the CTRL and the M20 inAldington andSmeeth, made of eight 270 kV cables.
Aviation
On 16 October 1908 theBritish Army Aeroplane No 1, flown by the AmericanSamuel Franklin Cody, was the first aircraft flown in the UK, at Farnborough; on 14 May 1909 he flew it for more than a mile. On 13 August 1909, his wife was the first woman in the UK to fly in a plane, also at Farnborough.
The first human airborne ejection seat firing took place on 24 July 1946 overChalgrove Airfield, Oxfordshire, in aMeteor, piloted byBernard Lynch; the first dummy ejection had been 10 May 1945 overRAF Oakley in west Buckinghamshire (today near the M40); on 13 March 1962, the first in-flight rocket-powered ejection took place byPeter Howard, an RAF doctor based at Farnborough'sInstitute of Aviation Medicine in MeteorWA364 at 250 ft over Chalgrove, with the rocket giving a maximum force of 16G. TheMiles M.52, designed atWoodley Aerodrome in Berkshire byMiles Aircraft, was an advanced design of aircraft which had the innovation of theflying tail orall-moving tail also known as astabilator; this would solve the problem of stability andaircraft control atsupersonic speeds, and its design was taken wholesale into the AmericanBell X-1, the firstsupersonic aircraft.
The first Harrier aircraftXV738 flew on 28 December 1967; this was the first aircraft of the RAF to have ahead-up display avionics system. The first two-seat HarrierXW174 flew on 24 April 1969, later crashing atLarkhill in June 1969. TheBritish Aerospace Sea HarrierXZ450 first flew on 20 August 1978; on 4 May 1982 this aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire atGoose Green, killing the pilot with800 Naval Air Squadron fromHMSHermes; the aircraft had noradar warning receiver (RWR), due to testing theSea Eagle, so could not detect the Skyguard radar had locked on to it. It was destroyed with theOerlikon GDF (35mm) ofGADA 601; it was the first Sea Harrier lost in the Falklands campaign.
Royston Instruments of Byfleet developed the world's first multi-channelflight data recorders in 1965.
South Foreland Lighthouse on 8 December 1858 was the world's first lighthouse with electric light, with the first type of industrial electrical generator made byFrederick Hale Holmes, from work he had carried out withFloris Nollet of Belgium, and 36 permanent magnets. By 1880, of the ten lighthouses with electric light, five were in the UK. From the lighthouse in 1899, the first international radio broadcast to France was made.Zénobe Gramme of Belgium made a muchbetter design in 1870 withself-excitation of magnets, and the first moderndynamo. North Foreland Lighthouse was the UK's last-staffed lighthouse until 1998.
Portland cement was developed in Northfleet, Kent, by William Aspdin, son ofJoseph Aspdin. The development was to heat the ingredients to around 1450 °C, producingclinker. Previously, temperatures were taken to only 800 °C, which was not enough. The first evercement kiln is still in Northfleet today in a cardboard factory. In the late 1800s, the rotary kiln made the process much more efficient. Concrete, effectively human-made stone, is the most widespread human-made material. 5% of all carbon emissions worldwide are from concrete production.
TheNational Fruit Collection is the largest collection offruit trees in the world, atBrogdale, nearFaversham in Kent.Scalextric was invented by Fred Francis in 1956, who founded Minimodels in Havant; initially the model cars had beenclockwork; it was made from 1967 atTriang in Margate. The world's firstMars Bar was made in Slough in 1932; it was modelled on theMilky Way, popular at the time in the USA. Twix was introduced at Slough in 1967, with production moving to eastern France (Mars Chocolat France atHaguenau inAlsace) in 2005. TheFord GT40 was developed byFord Advanced Vehicles at Slough in the mid-1960s.
England population density and low elevation coastal zones. South East England is particularly vulnerable tosea level rise.View of South East England coast from northern France
In unofficial usage, the South East can refer to a varying area – sometimes only to London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, and Surrey; but sometimes to an area corresponding to the former Standard Statistical Region. The South East is also occasionally used as a synonym for thehome counties.
The South East of England is the mostConservative voting region of Britain in terms of both seats and votes. The area also has some seats where there is strong support for other parties, for example,Oxford,Slough andSouthampton Test forLabour andBrighton Pavilion which is held by theGreen Party. Out of 84 parliamentary seats, the Conservatives hold 72. In the 2017 general election, the Conservatives won 54.8% of votes, Labour 28.6%, Liberal Democrats 10.6%, Greens 3.1%, and UKIP 2.2%.
Buckinghamshire, Medway and Kent, and Slough have an almost completelyselective education system – not just a fewgrammar schools as other English areas may have – withsecondary modern schools as the alternative. Kent has 33 grammar schools, Buckinghamshire 13, Medway 6 and Slough 4. The other areas arecomprehensive. The top thirty schools atA level are almost exclusively selective schools; one or two aresixth form colleges. However, the results for each county as a whole are not always directly related to the number of grammar schools, as Kent and Medway perform below average at A-level.The King's School, Canterbury claims to be oldest in England: 597 AD. Herschel Grammar School in Slough is the most oversubscribed school in England, with 14 people per place, Langley Grammar School in Slough is next with 13 per place, then Burnham Grammar School.[34]
508,000 in the region are at state secondary schools (the highest in England) with 101,000 in Kent (the highest in England for a county and completely selective) then 70,000 in Hampshire, 60,000 in Surrey, 45,000 in West Sussex, 36,000 in Oxfordshire, 35,000 in Buckinghamsire. The lowest is 6,000 at Bracknell Forest, then Reading with about 6,000. Of all regions, the South-East has the greatest percentage that attend a grammar school: 12%; the next highest is the South-West with 6%.[35] The most-educated people (NQF level 4 or above) in the region live in Elmbridge (51%), then Waverley, and Epsom and Ewell; 33% of people are at this level for the South-East, only second to London at 40%.
The region has the highest number of sixth formers, outside of London, in England;[36] the highest number is in Kent, the highest for England, then Buckinghamshire (also completely selective), then Surrey. For state school pupils, there is patchySTEM participation. Hampshire has the most passing STEM subjects in England and in the region, followed by Kent, Surrey and Buckinghamshire. For STEM subjects, Portsmouth is lowest by some distance (6 people passed A level Chemistry) and is almost the worst in England. Southampton also gets low STEM subject results. Bracknell Forest gets low STEM results, for its economic prosperity, but does not include private schools.
For languages, the best is Kent: the county achieves the most A-level language passes in England, although Hampshire is a close second. Both counties get more German A level passes than the whole ofNorth East England. Buckinghamshire and Surrey have high language A-level passes. Hampshire gets the most A-level passes in England (27,500), again more than North-East England (25,000). Although Hampshire is the best at languages, Portsmouth gets the fewest language passes in the region, and some of the lowest in England, with four French A levels, and has only 500 A level passes in total; next lowest are Slough, Bracknell Forest, and Southampton.
Reading School often gets the highest percentage of Oxbridge acceptances for a state school in England.
Reading School, a grammar, is the state school that gets the highest percentage (23%) into Oxbridge in 2010, behind 10 independents, and is also the oldest existing state grammar school in England;[37] above it in the region, of the independent schools, areMagdalen College School, Oxford (32%),Guildford High School (26%) andWycombe Abbey (25%). TheKendrick School, also in Reading, gets the 4th highest state school acceptance percentage to Oxbridge (18%) and the second highest in England outside of two grammar schools in London. Of the 25 state schools in the top 100 schools getting to Oxbridge, 7 are from the region. Many people from the north of East Sussex go to Kent's grammars; some people on the London edge of Surrey attend grammars inKingston upon Thames; and Buckingham's two grammars attract people from nearby Milton Keynes;[38] Buckinghamshire's grammar schools get some of best admissions to Oxbridge in the UK. Surrey has twice as many acceptances into Oxbridge as the whole of Wales; acceptances to Oxbridge are concentrated in 10 counties in the South-East.
1% of those at school in the South-East gained no GCSE passes in 2010; Portsmouth was most with 2.5%, and Windsor and Maidenhead had the lowest with 0.2%. For school free school meals, the region has the lowest percentage in England with 7.2%; the highest percentage is Southampton with 17%, and the lowest is Wokingham with 3.5% (the second lowest in England afterRutland); Buckinghamshire is 4.3%, then Bracknell Forest and Surrey are 4.9%. For truancy, the highest is South Bucks at 7.0, then Canterbury 7.0, Portsmouth 6.9, Thanet 6.9, Southampton 6.4, and Rushmoor 6.1. The lowest truancy percentages are for Tandridge 2.5, Windsor & Maidenhead 2.5, and Slough 2.5.
AtGCSE, the area in the South East (and England) with the highest results is consistently Buckinghamshire. Berkshire is split into unitary authorities, and Wokingham, Windsor and Slough have the next best GCSE results. All of Berkshire's unitary authorities have results above the England average, with West Berkshire considerably above average. Schools in Surrey and Hampshire also have consistently good GCSE results, and they are above average in Oxfordshire, West Sussex, Kent, Medway, and East Sussex. There are a small number of districts where results are significantly below average including the unitary authorities of Portsmouth (one of the lowestLEAs in the country), the Isle of Wight, Southampton, Brighton, and the districts of Oxford in Oxfordshire, Adur in West Sussex and Hastings in East Sussex.
There are forty-nine FE colleges in the region. The two main FE colleges areNorthbrook College in Sussex andBasingstoke College of Technology in Hampshire. Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshore share anLSC (which fund FE colleges), and Sussex has a combined LSC. The region's LSC office was in Reading, looking after five areas.
The best known university in the region is theUniversity of Oxford, famous for its academic achievements, and also for its ornatecolleges and its rowing crews on the Thames. It was ranked the fourth best university in the world by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2013.[39]
By totalHEFCE funding, the biggest university is the Open University, followed by Oxford University.[40] The Open and Oxford each receive around three times as much funding as any other university in the region, and Oxford receives the largest research grant in England (as of 2009). The University of Southampton gets the third largest amount of funding, with the next largest research grant, one of the largest in England. Other universities with a large research grant are Reading, Sussex and Surrey. Oxford gets twice as much total income (around £700 million) as the next largest, Southampton. Surrey and Reading get the next largest total income.
Oxford and Southampton have the largest numbers of students, followed by Brighton. Of total students in the region, around 45% are from the region and 35% from other regions. Of full-time first degree students in the region, over 35% are from the region, 15% are from London, and 10% each are from the East of England and the South-West; in total, around 70% are from the south of England. Very few are from the North-East or Scotland. Around 35% of the region's native students stay in the region, with 15% going to London and over 10% going to the South-West. In general, for other regions of the UK, the South-East's students are more prepared to study in other regions than those regions' students are prepared to study in the South-East. Once they graduate, over 50% stay in the South-East, with 25% going to London, around 5% going to the East of England, and around 10% going to the South-West; around 90% stay in the south of England.
Overall, the South East of England is a very prosperous area with the second largest regional economy in the UK (after London), valued at £177 billion in 2006.[41] GDP per capita in 2007 was estimated at £22,624, compared with a UK average of £19,956, making South East England the second richest region per capita, behind London.[42] However prosperity varies significantly across the region and despite its image of wealth there are large pockets of deprivation. GDP per capita in Berkshire and Milton Keynes is more than twice that of East Sussex and the Isle of Wight.[43]
Many high technology companies are located near the M3 in Surrey and the M4 in Berkshire.Sun Microsystems had their UK base inBlackwater nearCamberley until 2009.Microsoft andOracle have their UK headquarters next door to each other in Reading (Wokingham borough), as do theYell Group andLogica (near junction 11 of the M4). The Gatwick Diamond is also a hub for hi-tech industry, centred atGatwick Airport withEpsom to the north andBurgess Hill to the south. The largest company, by turnover, in the South East is Vodafone, followed by Ineos.
The main road transport routes are along theM1 through Buckinghamshire; theM40 through Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire; theM4 throughBerkshire andBuckinghamshire; theM2 motorway/A2 andM20 through Kent; theM23 through Surrey and West Sussex; theM3 through Surrey and Hampshire. All these routes connect to theM25, which runs near to and occasionally through the region's border with Greater London.
TheA34 provides a north–south road link through Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire. The east–west corridor through the south of the region is provided by theA27 and theM27.
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2020)
As part of the transport planning system the Regional Assembly is under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy (RTS) to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involves region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by theHighways Agency andNetwork Rail.[47] Within the region the local transport authorities carry out transport planning through the use of aLocal Transport Plan (LTP) which outlines their strategies, policies and implementation programme.[48]
Vodafone HQ north of Newbury; it arrived as Racal-Vodafone in 1983, when Bayer also arrived; Vodafone is theworld's second-biggest mobile phone company (the world's largest privately owned) with £40 billion of revenue and 464 million customers, and profits of £11bn; it has around 19M UK customers, and by value makes up about 5% of the FTSE 100.
Further east on the A404(M) isMcGraw-Hill UK inCox Green; other the side of the A404(M) at the Cox Green Interchange (9A), GSK makesSensodyne,Corsodyl,Aquafresh, and Macleans;Volvo Cars UK are at Scandinavia House (in Marlow from 1986 to 2012) next to GSK;Nortel UK left in 2009.Sanofi Pasteur MSD UK (vaccines) is based next to the Maidenhead council offices.Initial Washrooms Solutions is next to the railway station and on the other side of A308 isHutchison 3G UK; on the other side of the railway is theRank Group at the A308 roundabout, inBraywick.Adobe Systems have their European HQ on the A4, south of the B4447 roundabout, next to a Sainsbury's.Hanson UK is based at the A4/A308 roundabout; Hitachi Europe (withMaxell Europe) is off theA4094 on the northern outskirts towardsCookham at Whitebrook Park, withDS Smith, at the formerFormica Research Centre. Avery Dennison UK are based to the north off the A308 atFurze Platt.
Syngenta UK andWincor Nixdorf UK (ATMs) are in Bracknell.Boehringer Ingelheim UK is off the A3095 in west Bracknell inEasthampstead; nearby to the north isWaitrose; to the east along the A3095 isPanasonic UK; next door to the south isIHS UK (owner ofJane's Information Group) andHHI Europe (construction equipment); further along the A3095 isBMW (GB); BMW sold their first model in the UK in 1966, the2002, and sold 230,000 cars in the UK, a record amount. In 2017, German car imports to the UK were worth €20.8 billion.[67] To the south on the Southern Ind Est isDaler-Rowney (known for itsacrylic paint; Rowney was the first supplier in Europe in 1963.
Martin-BakerMk 9 ejection seat; Martin-Baker seats have saved around 950 RAF pilots, and around 7600 pilots around the world, and were developed by SirJames Martin (1893–1981) from Northern Ireland.
Argos head office on Avebury Boulevard in Milton Keynes; Argos was established in 1973 from what was theGreen Shield Stamps company and shops, and since 2016 has been owned by Sainsbury's, formerly Home Retail Group.
In the south-west of Milton-Keynes,Chemetall, a chemical company, is inDenbigh West,Bletchley, nearMarshall Amplification, near Denbigh Roundabout (B4034);Yokohama UK (tyres) is at Mount Farm (Bletchley and Fenny Stratford) north of Denbigh West, next to the A5 (Fenny Stratford bypass); to the east of Mount Farm, Kemble and Co. were Britain's last piano manufacturers, until the factory closed in 2009.Holophane Europe make floodlighting on the Mount Farm Ind Est, east of A4146/A5 Caldecotte Interchange; on the west of Mount Farm, on the B4034, Basell Polyolefins UK (part of the DutchLyondellBasell) makepolypropylene compounds.Domino's Pizza Group (arrived in the UK in 1985) is in West Ashland near the A5/A421 junction. Suzuki GB is on the A421 near B4034 roundabout atTattenhoe inShenley Brook End on the south-western edge.
Elsewhere in the borough,Welcome Break is at the M1service station inNewport Pagnell, whereAston Martin had a factory until 2007 (The existing site is now home to the Aston Martin Works, which focuses on heritage sales, service, spares and restoration operations). The town is also home to a customer centre of car retailerCazoo, located just off the A509/A422 junction at Tickford Roundabout.FCO Services andHMGCC is based atHanslope Park, in a rural area 6 mi (9.7 km) north of Central Milton Keynes.
Further south along the M20,Givaudan UK (flavourings, formerQuest International, and previously Proprietary Perfume and Flavours, or PPF International) has a 10-acre large plant inKennington; next-door is Premier Foods (former RHM before 2007, and opened as Batchelors in 1957) on theA2070 next to theRiver Great Stour and therailway, east of the M20; the 16-acre site makesPaxostuffing, Savoury Rice, Pasta n Sauce, Bisto,Cup-a-Soup (introduced in 1972), Vesta curries (launched by Batchelors in 1961), and claims to be the largest dry food manufacturing site in Europe; it now makesBird's Custard andAngel Delight. Chartham Papers (owned byArjo Wiggins) is the UK's only manufacturer oftracing paper atChartham. Kent grows three-quarters of the UK'sBramley apples.[citation needed]
Cummins Power Generation is inAcol, near Manston Airport on theA299, andPfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world and manufacturer ofAnadin, had its European R&D site in Sandwich until 2012, next to theRiver Stour andA256. Hornby, with Airfix andHumbrol, is on theA254 onWestwood Ind Est on the southern edge of Margate; the site started out asTri-ang Railways in 1954, becoming Hornby in 1972 when the parent company collapsed, and the lastmodel train sets were made there in 1999; these are now made by a company owned byKader. Delfinware (owned byWPP plc) makes dish drainers off theA259 on the Pennypot Ind Estate inHythe.Megger make electrical test equipment in Dover on the A20; nearbyP&O Ferries is on the A20 below theDover Western Heights.Saga plc, founded in 1959, has a large headquarters inSandgate, next toFolkestone School for Girls, at the A259/B2963 junction.
Axa Personal pension scheme is inTunbridge Wells, andLamberts Healthcare (part ofMerck), based atHigh Brooms, are a leading manufacturer of vitamin supplements.J.H. Dewhurst (founded in 1919) was last based in Tunbridge Wells, until it closed in 2006 (it had in the early 1990s over 1,100 stores nationwide and was Britain's largest butcher).Panini UK are on theA264 in the west of Tunbridge Wells.Rotosound on the A22 nearSevenoaks railway station makesguitar strings.Salter Housewares (weighing equipment) is in the east ofTonbridge at the A26/B2017 roundabout inTudeley,Capel; Adrian Scripps produce apples off the B2017 near the A228 east of Tonbridge.
Around 1,000 Minis are made each day in Cowley; BMW bought the plant in 1994 and has made around 3m since 2001; there are 4,500 staff and around ten miles of conveyors; the engines are made atHams Hall inNorth Warwickshire.
Ascari are in Banbury.Kenco coffee is made atKraft Foods Banbury owned byMondelēz International (former Kraft before October 2010) withCafé HAG andCarte Noir off A422/A423 roundabout opposite a Tesco; the site was built to makeBird's Custard in 1964, byGeneral Foods who were bought by Kraft in 1990, and claims to be the biggest coffee-production site in Europe; Nestle make much of their coffee inSouth Derbyshire. On other side of A422 to Kraft is a manufacturing site ofDematic UK, with Terex MHPS (formerDemag Cranes), andKannegiesser UK (industrial clothes washers). On north-east side of Banbury is the large site ofNorbar Torque, who are a main international manufacturer oftorque wrenchs. Next door is a large factory ofBarry Callebaut UK, a Swiss manufacturer of cocoa (for Nestle and Cadbury), on the Wildmere Road Ind Est, north of the A422 near the M40 junction 11. Prodrive are on the north of the estate, andiSOFT are on the east near the M40. Further north was a main site of Alcan Extrusions (formerBritish Aluminium, bought by Alcan in 1982), which closed in 2008.
Esso is based in Leatherhead; Esso have around 1,100 petrol stations in the UK - 14% of all stations, and pays around £7bn in UK tax, and own theBrent oil field; the site is also the worldwide base of ExxonMobil Aviation Fuels and Marine.
Virgin Atlantic on Manor Royal in Crawley; Virgin has 12747s compared to BA's 56, but both have around 18 of the newAirbus 380; Gatwick now flies 40 million passengers a year, a world record for a single-runway airport.
Nestlé UK is moving its headquarters fromCity Place Gatwick to Manor Royal Business District in Crawley from September 2023.[76] To the south, on the east of Manor Royal, isMonierRedland (roof tiles) andARINC UK (avionics), and a large site of Thales, with its civilianaircraft simulationTTS division (formerRedifon) now owned since 2012 byL-3 Communications); much of Thales in Crawley is the formerMullard, who made radars, and Thomson Racal Defence Electronics (and Thorn EMI); Thales in Crawley make much of the Royal Navy's electronic (mission) systems.UK Power Networks (electrical operator for region) is south of Manor Royal inThree Bridges;SEEBOARD was based on the A23 inBroadfield.Invensys have many sites in Crawley.WesternGeco (geophysical services) is at the end of the Gatwick Interchange M23 spur.
The culture of South East England has been influenced a number of factors: by its part of contributing to the "idealised English identity", due to the region's historic idyllic rural landscape;[77] its serving forGreater London as commutinghinterland,[78] and, in recent times, the concentration of the UK's creative industry across the South East as well as London.[77][79]
Literature, TV Puppetry & Animation, Cinema, Music and Cuisine
Television coverage for Buckinghamshire is complex and is split three ways depending on location. The western part of the county is in the BBC South and ITV Meridian (South Coast sub-region).[citation needed] Much of Milton Keynes UA is covered byBBC East based inNorwich, with theLook East programme; similarly the ITV region for most of Milton Keynes isITV Anglia with theITV News Anglia programme, also from Norwich. South of the county is covered byBBC London News andITV London News which both broadcast fromLondon.
That's Solent TV, a subsidiary TV station fromThat's TV based in Portsmouth, covers Portsmouth, Isle of Wight, Southampton and Winchester.[90]
Greatest Hits Radio South Coast, formerly regional adult contemporary stationWave 105 in South Hampshire and East Dorset, and following its transition to GHR (with its own dedicated breakfast and afternoon shows separate from those on the other stations in the South) also broadcasts on the formerWessex FM andVale FM frequencies in Dorset, which previously carried GHR South and GHR West respectively. Broadcast from the same studio complex as GHR South, the former Wave 105 base at Fareham
Nation Broadcasting operates two services based in Southampton:Nation Radio South Coast (a regional station, previously broadcasting as Greatest Hits Radio South Coast, Sam FM, JACK FM and Original 106), andEasy Radio South Coast (former Hits Radio South Coast, 107.4 The Quay, Portsmouth; The Saint, Southampton; and Dream 107.2, Winchester).
Charles William Miller, who went to school in Southampton, was responsible for taking football to Brazil. He had a Scottish father and a Brazilian mother; around the same time,Alexander Watson Hutton, a Scottish teacher, had taken football to Argentina;Dresden English Football Club, founded by British workers, would bring football to Germany.[99]
^Hawkins, Oliver; Keen, Richard; Nakatudde, Nambassa; Ayres, Steven; Baker, Carl; Harker, Rachael; Bolton, Paul; Johnston, Neil; Cracknell, Richard (28 July 2015)."General Election 2015".House of Commons Library.Archived from the original on 28 September 2018. Retrieved28 September 2018.
^ab"Eurostat database".eurostat.Archived from the original on 26 September 2018. Retrieved26 September 2018. Follow 'Regional economic accounts - ESA2010 (reg_eco10)'. Then 'Gross domestic product indicators – ESA2010 (reg_eco10gdp)'. Then 'Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by NUTS 3 regions (nama_10r_3gdp)'. Then 'folder with magnifying glass' icon. Then select 'GEO' [top of table]. Then 'select all' followed by 'deselect all'. Then scan down to UK data near end). Data source uses euros not pounds.
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