North East England Totally Explained

Everything about North East England totally explained

North-East England is one of the nine official regions of England and comprises the combined area of Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Tees Valley.
   The highest point in the region is The Cheviot, in Northumberland, at . The principal city is Newcastle Upon Tyne. The largest city in terms of population is Sunderland, but Newcastle and Tyneside have a larger combined total.
   As well as its urban centres of Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside the region is also noted for the richness of its natural beauty. Northumberland National Park, the region's coastline, its section of the Pennines and Weardale provides evidence for this. It also has great historic importance, the evidence of which is seen in Northumberland's Castles and the two World Heritage Sites of Durham Cathedral and Hadrian's Wall.
   The shipbuilding industry that once dominated both Wearside and Tyneside suffered a terrible decline during the second half of the twentieth century. Tyneside is now re-inventing itself as an international centre of art and culture and, through The Centre For Life, scientific research (especially in stem cell technology) and popular nightlife, in areas such as the Quayside or The Gate. After suffering economic decline during the last century, Wearside is becoming an important area for quaternary industry, science and high technology. The economy of Teesside is largely based on its petrochemical industry. Northumberland and County Durham, both being largely rural, base much of its economy on farming and tourism. The North East has the lowest GDP/capita in England.
   In May 2005 the 'Passionate people. Passionate places' Regional Image campaign was launched to promote North East England as a great place in which to work, study, visit and invest.

Local government

The official region consists of the following subdivisions:

Ceremonial county	County /unitary	Districts
1. Northumberland †		a.) Blyth Valley, b.) Wansbeck, c.) Castle Morpeth, d.) Tynedale, e.) Alnwick, f.) Berwick-upon-Tweed
Tyne and Wear *		2. Newcastle upon Tyne, 3. Gateshead, 4. North Tyneside, 5. South Tyneside, 6. Sunderland
Durham	7. Durham †	a.) Durham (city), b.) Easington, c.) Sedgefield, d.) Teesdale, e.) Wear Valley, f.) Derwentside, g.) Chester-le-Street
	8. Darlington U.A.
	9. Hartlepool U.A.
	10. Stockton-on-Tees U.A. (North of River Tees)
North Yorkshire (part only)	10. Stockton-on-Tees U.A. (South of River Tees)
	11. Redcar and Cleveland U.A.
	12. Middlesbrough U.A.

Key: shire county = † | metropolitan county = *

History

The ancient history of this region was first recorded by Roman settlement, which includes construction of the most important Roman monument in Great Britain, Hadrian's Wall. This wall as well as the Stanegate also continue into Cumbria to the west, but the most significant stone battlements of the wall are in North East England, since the availability of stone was much greater on the Whin Sill or eastern reaches of the wall. Hadrian's Wall was constructed primarily to prevent small bands of raiders and unwanted immigrants from the north, rather than a fighting line for a major invasion.
The region was created in 1994 and was originally defined as Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham and Cleveland. As part of a reform of local government, Cleveland has since been abolished and several unitary districts created. The North East has been considered to be very religious especially Northumberland (home of the Lindisfarne Gospels), some of the scenery in the outlying villages is of considerable quality.
The region is now considered to consist of four distinct 'sub-regions':

County Durham
Northumberland
Tyne and Wear
Tees Valley (former Cleveland area plus Darlington)

A referendum in 2004 as to whether a directly-elected regional assembly should be set up for North East England resulted in a decisive "no" vote.
   In November 2004 people in the North East voted "no" in a referendum on whether to set up an elected regional assembly. The total number of people voting against the plans was 696,519 (78%), while 197,310 (22%) voted in favour.
   Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott admitted his plans for regional devolution had suffered an "emphatic defeat".
   Conservative spokesman for the regions Bernard Jenkin said the vote would mean the end of plans for a north-east assembly. He told the BBC: "The whole idea of regional government has been blown out of the water by this vote".

Biodiversity

The region has a rich natural heritage, its diverse landscape includes maritime cliffs and extensive moorland containing a number of rare species of flora and fauna. Of particular importance are the saltmarshes of Lindisfarne,the Tees Estuary, the heaths, bogs and traditional upland hay meadows of the North Pennines, the distinctive Arctic-alpine flora of Upper Teesdale, the Farne Islands (which contain rare seabirds such as the Roseate Tern) and the Magnesian Limestone grasslands of East Durham - a habitat found nowhere else in the world. The North East also features woodland such as Kielder Forest, the largest man-made forest in Europe. This is located within Northumberland National Park and contains an important habitat for the endangered red squirrel. The region is the English stronghold of black grouse and contains 80-90% of the UK population of yellow marsh saxifrage. A recently created - but often praised site for bird watching is Rainton Meadows - home of Joe's Pond, just outside Houghton-le-Spring.

Demographics

Although the North-East region has the lowest rate of HIV infection in the UK, it has the highest rate of heart attacks for men, and for lung cancer for women in England (just below Scotland), and the highest lung cancer rate for men in the UK. It has the joint highest birth rate for women under 20 in the UK (with Wales). It also has the highest youth unemployment (ages 16-24) in the UK, and the second highest trade union membership for men (after Northern Ireland). For English students in higher education, those for the North East are most likely (72%) to pick a university in their home region; Scotland is the highest with 95% staying in their home country. The North East also has the highest proportion of Christians in the UK.

Transport

Most important towns in the North East are on the East Coast Main Line, with fast connections to London and Edinburgh, as well as being close to the A1 or A19. However, north of Morpeth, the A1 is single carriageway. There is the Newcastle International Ferry Terminal at North Shields. DFDS operate two ferries a day to Amsterdam and one a day on the Stavanger - Haugesund - Bergen route. The two main airports are Newcastle Airport and Durham Tees Valley Airport. The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail network which serves the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, with stations in both Sunderland and Newcastle city centres, other towns and suburbs in the county, as well as at Newcastle Airport and other attractions such as the Stadium of Light, St James' Park and Gateshead International Stadium

Economy

The North-East region has the lowest GDP/capita in England, and second lowest in the United Kingdom only behind Wales. The economy for several decades was idiosyncratically predicated on ship building and coal mining; hence the phrase taking . County Durham and Northumberland are largely agricultural. Nationally well-known companies in the North East include ICI in Middlesbrough. Swan Hunter still makes ships in Wallsend. Scottish & Newcastle is the largest UK-owned brewery, and has the Newcastle Federation Brewery in Dunston, producing Newcastle Brown Ale. Petroplus refine oil at the Port Clarence (former Teesside) Refinery. The government's Child benefit office is in Washington. Northern Rock building society is based in Gosforth. Findus UK is based in Longbenton. Nestlé have a chocolate factory in Fawdon. The MetroCentre, the largest shopping centre in Europe, is in Dunston. Before 2000 the Government Offices in Longbenton had a 1 mile long corridor which went all along the outside of the buildings, since then the whole place has changed with new buildings being built.

Education

Secondary education

The North East education system consists of largely comprehensive schools but with a number of private and independent schools found in Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Stockton and Northumberland in particular. At GCSE level, the region performs similar to other largely urban areas although generally results are below the national average. Middlesbrough performs the worst with average results significantly below the national average for England, followed closely by Newcastle and Sunderland. Both Northumberland and North Tyneside perform above average, with Northumberland the best. St Thomas More R.C. School in Blaydon (a voluntary funded Roman Catholic specialist technology college) and Emmanuel College (a selective independent state school) are two of the best performing schools in Gateshead. Other well performing schools in the region include Gateshead High School for Girls, Westfield School in Newcastle, Park View Community School in Chester-le-Street and Lord Lawson of Beamish Community School in Birtley.
At A-level, local education authorities in the north east are improving at a greater rate than the national average, but produce results substantially below other areas of the England. Sunderland performs the best, followed by Darlington and Redcar and Cleveland. South Tyneside is the worst performing LEAs at A-level in the region.
The independent and private schools in the area perform highly. Central Newcastle High School and Royal Grammar School, Newcastle were both named in the top 100 independent schools nationally in 2006. Other well-performing private schools include Durham School, Sunderland High School and Grindon Hall Christian School (Sunderland). The private schools out-perform the state schools.
The region's top nine state schools, based on A-level results for 2006, are:

1. The Hermitage School

2. Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College

3. Durham Johnston Comprehensive School

4. Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham

5. St Robert of Newminster Roman Catholic School

6. King Edward VI School, Morpeth

7. Cramlington Community High School

8. Bede College

9. Longbenton Community College (803)

Tertiary education

At the higher education level the North East contains a number of internationally acclaimed universities. These include the University of Durham, the third oldest university in England; Newcastle University, a member of the Russel Group and the newer universities of Northumbria University, University of Sunderland and the University of Teesside.

Local media

Local media include:

Regional television comes the BBC North East and Cumbria region, which has the regional evening Look North programme from Spital Tongues in Newcastle. The ITV region, Tyne Tees Television, has the evening programme North East Tonight from Gateshead.

BBC Radios Newcastle and Tees

Commercial radio stations such as: Metro Radio (Newcastle), 100-102 Century Radio (Gateshead), Galaxy North East (Wallsend), TFM Radio (Thornaby-on-Tees), Alpha 103.2 (Darlington), Sun FM (Sunderland), Durham FM and 97.5 Smooth Radio. Rock Radio broadcasts on DAB.

Community radio stations also operate in the area such as: NE1 FM (Newcastle).

Local regional newspapers are the Sunderland Echo (Sunderland), Evening Chronicle (Newcastle), The Journal (Newcastle), Evening Gazette, Shields Gazette (South Shields), Hartlepool Mail, and The Northern Echo (Darlington).

New media company Great North News Services (Newcastle upon Tyne).

Reference line notes

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