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Solihull West Midlands

Approximate Population: 94,753

Residential development in Solihull comprises a variety of housing types, but features a notable preponderance of semi-detached, detached and town houses, with little or no true terraces.   Many of the larger developments were constructed between 1950 and 1970.   One of the earlier large scale developments centred around Beechwood Park Road and Stonor Park Road with new detached houses selling for £4,000 in 1952.   Chelmsley Wood to the north of Solihull town centre is a large 1960s overspill estate for Birmingham, and is currently marketed under the name of “North Solihull”. In the early to mid-1980s, the new Monkspath district constructed east of Shirley (and close to the M42 motorway) was the UK’s single largest housing development of that decade.

Solihull offers a variety of shopping facilities.   It has an open-air 1960s-style shopping centre called Mell Square.   In recent years, the town has undergone much development, and the High Street has been pedestrianised since 1994. On July 2, 2002, a large new shopping centre, Touchwood, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Solihull is the home of the four wheel drive car manufacturer Land Rover and a range of other major companies.

The National Exhibition Centre, commonly thought to be in Birmingham, is in fact within the borough of Solihull, as is almost all of Birmingham International Airport and the ever-expanding Birmingham Business Park.

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Cambridge Cambridgeshire

Approximate Population:  280,305

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England.   It lies about 50 miles (80 km) north of London.   It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen.

Cambridge is best known as the home of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s premier universities.   The university includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, King’s College Chapel, and the Cambridge University Library.   The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two buildings, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the far south of the city and St John’s College Chapel tower in the north.   The pronunciation of the city’s name is distinct from that of Cambridge in Gloucestershire, England, which is /ˈkæmbrɪdʒ/.

According to the 2001 United Kingdom census, the City’s population was 108,863 (including 22,153 students), and the population of the urban area (which includes parts of South Cambridgeshire district) is estimated to be 130,000. Cambridge is surrounded by many smaller towns and villages.

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IT Services Wolverhampton West Midlands

Approximate Population: 239,100

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough of the West Midlands, England. In 2004, the local government district had an estimated population of 239,100; the wider Urban Area had a population of 251,462, which makes it the 13th most populous city in England.

Historically a part of Staffordshire, and forming part of the metropolitan county of the West Midlands from 1974, the city is commonly recognised as being named after Lady Wulfruna, who founded the town in 985: its name coming from Anglo-Saxon Wulfrūnehēantūn = “Wulfrūn’s high or principal enclosure or farm”. Alternatively, the city may have earned its original name from a local Danish leader who was called Wulfere. Nevertheless, the name Wulfruna is commonly used in the city - for example, for the Wulfrun Centre or for Wulfrun Hall.

The city’s name is often abbreviated to “W’ton” or “Wolves”. The city council’s motto is “Out of darkness, cometh light”. People from Wolverhampton are known as Wulfrunians.

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Gloucester Gloucestershire

Approximate Population: 123,205

Kip’s West prospect of Gloucester, c. 1725, emphasizes the causeway and bridges traversing the water meadows of the floodplain.

The traditional existence of a British settlement at Gloucester (Caer Glow, Gleawecastre, Gleucestre) is not confirmed by any direct evidence, but Gloucester was the Roman municipality of Colonia Nervia Glevensium, or Glevum, founded in the reign of Nerva.   Parts of the walls can be traced, and many remains and coins have been found, though inscriptions are scarce. Evidence for some civic life after the end of Roman Britain includes the mention in the Historia Brittonum that Vortigern’s grandfather ruled Gloucester.   According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Gloucester passed briefly to Wessex from the Battle of Deorham in 577 until 584, when it came under the control of Mercia.

Gloucester (Glowancestre, 1282) derives from the Anglo-Saxon for fort (Old English ceaster) preceded by the Roman stem Glev- (pronounced glaiw).   In Old Welsh, the city was known as Caerloyw, caer = castle, and loyw from gloyw = glowing/bright.   Gloucester was captured by the Saxons in 577.   Its situation on a navigable river, and the foundation in 681 of the abbey of St Peter by Æthelred, favoured the growth of the town; and before the Norman Conquest of England, Gloucester was a borough governed by a portreeve, with a castle which was frequently a royal residence, and a mint.

In the early tenth century the remains of Saint Oswald were brought to a small church in Gloucester, bringing many pilgrims to the town.  The core street layout dates back to the reign of Ethelfleda in late Saxon times.

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Southampton Hampshire

Approximate Population: 228,600

There are 120,305 jobs in Southampton, and 3,570 people claiming job seeker’s allowance, approximately 2.4 per cent of the city’s population, as of March 2007.  This compares with an average of 2.5 per cent for England as a whole.

As of June 2006, 74.7 per cent of the city’s population are classed as economically active.

Just over a quarter of the jobs available in the city are in the health and education sector.   A further 19 per cent are property and other business and the third largest sector is wholesale and retail, which accounts for 16.2 percent.  Between 1995 and 2004, the number of jobs in Southampton has increased by 18.5 per cent.

As of January 2007, the average annual salary in the city was £22,267.   This was £1,700 lower than the national average and £3,800 less than the average for the South East.

Southampton has always been a maritime centre, and the docks have long been a major employer in the city.   In particular, it is a port for cruise ships; its heyday was the first half of the 20th century, and in particular the inter-war years, when it handled almost half the passenger traffic of the UK. Today it remains home to luxury cruise ships, as well as being the largest freight port on the Channel coast and fourth largest UK port by tonnage, with several container terminals.

Unlike some other ports, such as Liverpool, London, and Bristol, where industry and docks have largely moved out of the city centres leaving room for redevelopment, Southampton retains much of its inner-city industry. Part of the docks has been redeveloped, however, as the Ocean Village development, a local marina and entertainment complex.   Southampton is home to the headquarters of both the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the Department for Transport.

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IT Services Paisley Scotland

Approximate Population: 74,000

The Piazza Shopping Centre, based in the heart of Paisley, has forged many links within the community and is the town’s busiest centre.   Featuring household names such as Somerfield, Subway, New Look, The Carphone Warehouse, The Piazza is also home to one of the Top 50 Post Office branches in the UK - one of two Scottish flagship stores, it was made a Crown Post Office in 2007.   The Piazza has also recently launched a Student Card, providing a range of discounts for the thousands of students that pass through Paisley every year.

The Paisley Centre is a three floored centre including a department store, an indoor market and over 50 shopping units including Marks and Spencer, Boots, Superdrug, Vodafone, Thorntons, The Body Shop and T-Mobile as well as many local outlets including Baru.

In recent years, however, the quality and variety of shopping has declined, with many of Paisley’s inhabitants choosing to shop at the Braehead Shopping Centre opened in 1998 and lying within Renfrewshire’s boundaries. The Silverburn Centre in the Pollok area of Glasgow also attracts much of Paisley’s custom. Through this competition and high tax rates for local businesses, many stores have been forced to close their doors.

Despite a poor perception, however, many retailers are still thriving in Paisley’s shopping centres, and adding colour to the town is the variety of busy continental and farmers’ markets which often take place in the town.

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IT Services Ipswich Suffolk

Approximate Population: 128,000

Ipswich has undergone an extensive gentrification programme in recent years, principally centred around the waterfront. Though this has turned a deindustrialized dock area into an emerging residential and commercial centre, it is being completed at the expense of much of the town’s industrial and maritime heritage and in spite of efforts made by a local civic group, The Ipswich Society.

Much of this development is residential and is marketed at high net-worth individuals in the DINKY demographic. As such, some have considered it incompatible with Ipswich’s existing socio-economic mix. It could therefore be considered to be aimed at encouraging economic migration to the town, particularly as a commutable satellite town of London.

The Tolly Cobbold brewery, built in the 19th century and rebuilt 1894–1896, is one of the finest Victorian breweries in the United Kingdom. There was a Cobbold brewery in the town from 1746 until 2002 when Ridley’s Breweries took Tolly Cobbold over.  Felix Thornley Cobbold presented Christchurch Mansion to the town in 1896.  Former stables, reflected in the glass panels of the Willis Building.

The town centre contains the glass-clad building owned by Willis Limited, properly called the Willis Building but still often called the “Willis-Faber building” by locals, as the company Willis Corroon themselves used to be called Willis Faber. Designed by Norman Foster, the building dates from 1974. It became the youngest Grade I listed building in Britain in 1991 and at the time one of only two buildings to be listed and be under 30 years of age.

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Doncaster South Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 67,977

During the 14th century a number of friars arrived in Doncaster who were known for their religious enthusiasm and preachings.   In 1307 Franciscan friars arrived and they were called Greyfriars because of the colour of their costumes.   Carmelites or Whitefriars arrived in the middle of the 14th century.   In the Mediaeval period other major features of the town included the Hospital of St Nicholas and leper colony of the Hospital of St James, a moot hall, grammar school, and the five-arched stone town bridge with a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Bridge.

By 1334, Doncaster was the wealthiest town in southern Yorkshire and the sixth most important town in Yorkshire as a whole, even boasting its own banker.   By 1379, it was already recovering from the Black Death and had a population of around 1,500 people, and by 1547, it had over 2,000.   The town was incorporated in 1461 and its first Mayor and corporation were established.

Today, many of Doncaster’s streets are named with the suffix ‘gate’.   The word ‘gate’ is derived from the old Danish word ‘gata’ which meant street. During Medieval times, craftsmen or tradesmen with similar skills, tended to live in the same street.   Baxter is an ancient word for baker thereby confirming that Baxtergate was indeed the bakers’ street.   It is assumed that ‘Frenchgate’ may be named after French speaking Normans who settled on this street.

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Nottingham Nottinghamshire

Approximate Population: 288,700

In the 15th century, Nottingham had established itself as the centre of a thriving export trade in religious sculpture made from alabaster.   The town became a county corporate in 1449, giving it effective self-government, in the words of the charter, “for eternity”.   The Castle and Shire Hall were expressly excluded and technically remained as detached Parishes of Nottinghamshire.

During the Industrial Revolution, much of Nottingham’s prosperity was founded on the textile industry; in particular, Nottingham was an internationally important centre of lace manufacture.   However, the rapid and poorly planned growth left Nottingham with the reputation of having the worst slums in the British Empire outside India.   Residents of these slums rioted in 1831, in protest against the Duke of Newcastle’s opposition to the Reform Act 1832, setting fire his residence, Nottingham Castle.

In common with the UK textile industry as a whole, Nottingham’s textile sector fell into headlong decline in the decades following World War II, as British manufacturers proved unable to compete on price or volume with the output of factories in the Far East and South Asia.   Very little textile manufacture now takes place in Nottingham, but the City’s heyday in this sector endowed it with some fine industrial buildings in the Lace Market district. Many of these have been restored and put to new uses.

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Nottingham Nottinghamshire

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IT Services Basingstoke Hampshire

Approximate Population: 80,477

In the 19th century Basingstoke began to move into industrial manufacture, Wallis and Haslam (later Wallis & Steevens), began producing agricultural equipment including threshing machines in the 1850s, moving into the production of stationary steam engines in the 1860s and then traction engines in the 1870s.

Two traders who opened their first shops within a year of each other in the town, went on to become household names nationally: Thomas Burberry in 1856 and Alfred Milward in 1857.  Burberry became famous after he invented Gabardine and Milward founded the Milwards chain of shoe shops, which could be found on almost every high street until the 1980s. London Street includes a variety of architecture from the 17th to the 20th century.

Ordinary citizens were said to be shocked by the emotive, evangelical tactics of the Salvation Army when they arrived in the town in 1880, but the reaction from those employed by the breweries or within the Licence trade quickly grew more openly hostile.   Violent clashes became a regular occurrence culminating on Sunday 27 March 1881 with troops being called upon to break up the conflict after the Mayor had read the Riot Act.   The riot and its causes led to questions in Parliament and a period of notoriety for the town.

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