1.
Lincolnshire
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Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards, Englands shortest county boundary, the county town is Lincoln, where the county council has its headquarters. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the county of Lincolnshire. Therefore, part of the county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. The county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use, the county is fifth largest of the two-tier counties, as the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are not included. The county can be broken down into a number of geographical sub-regions including, Lincolnshire derived from the merging of the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the county was called Lindsey, and it is recorded as such in the 11th-century Domesday Book. In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey, Holland and these survived until 1974, when Holland, Kesteven, and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire. A local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside, and the south of the Humber was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police and are in the Yorkshire. The remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, Lincoln, North Kesteven, South Holland, South Kesteven and they are part of the East Midlands region. Lincolnshire is home to Woolsthorpe Manor, birthplace and home of Sir Isaac Newton and he attended The Kings School, Grantham and its library has preserved his signature, applied to a window sill when he was a teenager. Lincolnshire is an area, growing large amounts of wheat, barley, sugar beet. In South Lincolnshire, where the soil is rich in nutrients, some of the most common crops include potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers. Most such companies are long gone, and Lincolnshire is no longer an engineering centre, however, as a result of the current economic climate some food production facilities have closed down, this has caused some reduction in the levels of migrant workers. The large number of people from Portugal is still obvious in the town of Boston. A coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents currently controls Lincolnshire County Council, the Conservative Party comfortably controlled the County Council following the 2009 local elections, in which they increased their majority to 43 seats. The Labour Party lost a total of 15 seats including 7 in Lincoln, the Lincolnshire Independents gained a total of four seats, although one of their number moved to the Conservative group during 2010, increasing the number of Conservative seats to 61
2.
United Kingdom Census 2011
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A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011 and it was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics is the office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department formed in 2008. ONS designs, manages and runs the census in England and Wales, the first results from the 2011 census, age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 16 July 2012. The first results for Scotland, and the first UK-wide results, were published on 17 December 2012, more detailed and specialised data were published from 2013. The Registrar General John Rickman conducted the first census of Great Britains population, from 1911 onwards rapid social change, scientific breakthroughs, and major world events affected the structure of the population. The 1971 census was run by the newly created Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, in 1996 the Office for National Statistics was formed by merging the Central Statistical Office, OPCS and the statistics division of the Department of Employment, the first census it ran was in 2001. In 2008 the UK Statistics Authority was established as an independent body, a population census is a key instrument for assessing the needs of local communities. When related to data sources such as housing or agricultural censuses, or sample surveys. Most countries of the world take censuses, the United Nations recommends that countries take a census at least once every ten years, other organisations that use census data include healthcare organisations, community groups, researchers and businesses. The 2011 census for England and Wales included around 25 million households, people could complete and submit their questionnaire online, or fill it in on paper and post it back in a pre-addressed envelope. Guidance was provided online and through the census helpline, completed questionnaires were electronically tracked and field staff followed up with households that did not return a questionnaire. In these cases field staff delivered and collected questionnaires and, where needed, provided advice or assistance in completing the questionnaire, there was a legal requirement to complete the 2011 census questionnaire, under the terms of the Census Act 1920. As at 27 March 2011 everyone who had lived or intended to live in the country for three months or more was required to complete a questionnaire, failure to return a completed questionnaire could lead to a fine and criminal record. The contract is valued at £150 million, approximately one third of the total £482 million census budget, concerns were raised during contract negotiations that the US PATRIOT Act could be used to force Lockheed Martin to reveal census data to US authorities. The Cabinet Office state that Lockheed Martin will develop the systems used to process census data, neither Lockheed Martin UK nor any Lockheed Martin employee will have access to personal Census data. The Office for National Statistics stated that no census information will ever leave the UK or be seen by any American-owned company. Several groups called for a boycott of the census over the involvement of Lockheed Martin, including the Stop the War Coalition, and the Christian thinktank Ekklesia
3.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
4.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
5.
Points of the compass
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The points of the compass, specifically on the compass rose, mark divisions of a compass, such divisions may be referred to as winds or directions. A compass point allows reference to a heading in a general or colloquial fashion. A compass is primarily divided into the four cardinal points—north, south, east and these are often further subdivided by the addition of the four intercardinal directions—northeast between north and east, southeast, southwest, and northwest —to indicate the eight principal winds. In meteorological usage, further intermediate points between cardinal and ordinal points, such as north-northeast between north and northeast, are added to give the sixteen points of a wind compass, for most applications, the fractional points have been superseded by degrees measured clockwise from North. In ancient China 24 points of the compass were used, measuring fifteen degrees between points. The names of the compass directions follow the 32-point wind compass rose follow these rules, The cardinal directions are north, east, south, west, the ordinal directions are northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest, formed by bisecting the angle of the cardinal winds. The name is merely a combination of the cardinals it bisects, the eight principal winds are the cardinals and ordinals considered together, that is N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Each principal wind is 45° from its neighbour, the principal winds form the basic eight-wind compass rose. The eight half-winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the principal winds, the half-winds are north-northeast, east-northeast, east-southeast, south-southeast, south-southwest, west-southwest, west-northwest and north-northwest. Notice that the name is constructed simply by combining the names of the winds to either side, with the cardinal wind coming first. The eight principal winds and the eight half-winds together yield a 16-wind compass rose, all of the above named points plus the sixteen quarter winds listed in the next paragraph define the 32 points of the wind compass rose. The sixteen quarter winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the points on a 16-wind compass rose. The name of a quarter-wind is X by Y, where X is a principal wind, so northeast by east means one quarter from NE towards E, southwest by south means one quarter from SW towards S. The eight principal winds, eight half-winds and sixteen quarter winds together yield a 32-wind compass rose, in the mariners exercise of boxing the compass, all thirty-two points of the compass are named in clockwise order. The title of the Alfred Hitchcock 1959 movie, North by Northwest, is not a direction point on the 32-wind compass. The traditional compass rose of eight winds was invented by seafarers in the Mediterranean Sea during the Middle Ages. This Italianate patois was used to designate the names of the winds on the compass rose found in mariner compasses. Tramutana, Gregale, Grecho, Sirocco, Xaloc, Lebeg, Libezo, Leveche, Mezzodi, Migjorn, Magistro, Mestre, etc
6.
Civil parish
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century
7.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
8.
East Lindsey
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East Lindsey is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England. The population of the council was 136,401 at the 2011 census. The council is based in Manby near Louth, other major settlements in the district include Alford, Spilsby, Mablethorpe, Skegness, Horncastle, a market town, and Chapel St Leonards. The political composition of East Lindsey District Council is as follows, With a total of 55 seats, East Lindsey has an area of 1,760 km², making it the fifth-largest district in England. It was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972 and it borders North East Lincolnshire and the Humber River to the north, the North Sea to the east, Boston to the south, and North Kesteven and West Lindsey to the west. The boundary between the district and North Kesteven, and part of Boston borough, is the River Witham, the furthest west settlement in the district is Wragby, and the furthest south is Antons Gowt, near Sibsey. It is bigger than many English counties, on the list of largest counties, it compares to the 29th largest county, being larger than counties such as Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. The coastal towns of Mablethorpe and Skegness, which attract recreational, in 2013 councillors voted to introduce a charge to garden waste collections of £25 per year. This was met with controversy both by residents and councillors, becoming council policy by a majority of one vote. East Lindsey has two of the best state schools in the East Midlands, but it also has the worst one, St Clements College, a secondary modern school in Skegness, got the lowest GCSEs in 2007 in the East Midlands. East Lindsey Business Centres East Lindsey CAB
9.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
10.
East Midlands
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The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. The eastern part of the Midlands, it consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, the region has an area of 15,627 km2, and was home to over 4.5 million people in 2011. The regions relative proximity to London and its connectivity on the national motorway and it is also the location of East Midlands Airport in north Leicestershire. The high point at 636 m is Kinder Scout, in the Peak District of the southern Pennines in northwest Derbyshire near Glossop. Other upland, hilly areas of 95 to 280 m in altitude, together with lakes and reservoirs, rise in and around the Charnwood Forest north of Leicester, and in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The regions major rivers, the Nene, the Soar, the Trent and the Welland, flow in a direction towards the Humber. The Derwent, conversely, rises in the High Peak before flowing south to join the Trent some 2 miles before its conflux with the Soar, 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, some 88% of the land is rural in character, although agriculture accounts for less than three per cent of the regions jobs. Lincolnshire is the only county of the six, with a true North Sea coastline of about 30 miles due to the protection afforded by Spurn Head. Church Flatts Farm in Coton in the Elms, South Derbyshire, is the furthest place from the sea in the UK, in April 1936 the first Ordnance Survey trig point was sited at Cold Ashby in Northamptonshire. The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts and The Wildlife Trusts are based next to the River Trent, the National Centre for Earth Observation is at the University of Leicester. The region is home to large quantities of limestone, and the East Midlands Oil Province, Charnwood Forest is noted for its abundant levels of volcanic rock, estimated to be approximately 600 million years old. 25% of the UKs cement is manufactured in the region at three sites in Hope and Tunstead in Derbyshire, and in Ketton Cement Works in Rutland. Of the aggregates that are produced in the region, 25% is from Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire each produce around 30% of the regions sand and gravel output. Barwell in Leicestershire had Britains largest meteorite on 24 December 1965, the 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake was 5.2 magnitude. Rockingham Forest was designated as a hunting forest by William the Conqueror. The National Forest is a project in central England run by The National Forest Company. It stretches from the outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west
11.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
12.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
13.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
14.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
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Lincolnshire Police
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Lincolnshire Police is the territorial police force covering the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of England. Despite the name, the area does not include North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire. In terms of area the force is one of the largest in the United Kingdom covering 2,284 square miles. The population of the covered by the force is 731,500. As of 2010 the force currently employs over 2,500 people, as at May 2016, there were 1,100 police officers,200 Special Constables and 149 PCSOs. Lincolnshire Constabulary was formed in 1856 under the County and Borough Police Act 1856, several other borough police forces used to exist in the county, but these were eventually combined with the Lincolnshire force. Under the Police Act 1946, Boston Borough Police and Grantham Borough Police were merged, while Lincoln City Police, Lincolnshire lost part of its area to the new Humberside Police in 1974. In 1965, the force had an establishment of 918 officers, proposals made by the Home Secretary on 20 March 2006 would have seen the force merge with the other four East Midlands forces to form a strategic police force for the entire region. These proposals were ended by John Reid in June 2006, the police authority received £287,600 from the Home Office for costs of preparing the ill-fated merger. In 2008 the Lincolnshire Police Authority experienced a funding crisis, the authority decided to reduce the shortfall by making a 79% increase in its precept. The government then announced its intention to cap this demand, resulting in a net 26% increase, in 2015 the constabulary hit controversy when an officer threatened to confiscate four-year-old girls bike on way to school because she was cycling on pavement. The force was forced to apologise. The Chief Constable is Bill Skelly, Lincolnshire Police has an establishment of about 1,100 police officers. The force has just had major changes to its organisation, divisions have gone and front line officers are organised into Neighbourhood Policing Teams, previously there were 3 divisions with Lincoln, Skegness, and Grantham hosting the divisional headquarters of each. The county is now divided into four districts for the purposes of policing and these are Lincoln & West Lindsey, North & South Kesteven, Coast & Wolds, Boston & South Holland. These areas effectively pair 2 district/borough council areas to one policing district, the force currently has round the clock armed response vehicles manned by Roads Policing Officers. Front line officers in Lincolnshire also carry Taser electronic incapacitating devices and these use electricity to cause neuromuscular incapacitation to render subjects incapable of free bodily movement for a short period of time whilst the device is operating. Taser is carried in addition to PAVA incapacitant spray, Officers previously used CS spray, however this was removed from service due to it being flammable
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Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
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Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
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East Midlands Ambulance Service
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In 2011 EMAS received over 776,000 emergency 999 calls. EMAS have a total of 67 ambulance stations, although four are vacant, as of December 2014 EMAS have 522 ambulance vehicles, more than half of which are more than five years old. In 2013 EMAS took on 140 new emergency care assistants, in 2014 EMAS announced they were bringing back the ambulance technician role. In 2010−11 EMAS missed key performance targets after a spell brought snow. By June 2015 EMAS had failed to meet their category 1 response times for the successive year. EMAS previously provided patient transport services until contracts worth £20 million per year were taken over in 2012 by two private sector companies, in 2012−13 EMAS had a budget of £148 million. The Trust spent £4.3 million on voluntary and private services in 2013−14 for support in busy periods. In 2015 the service also faced a drop in funding of around £6 million a year, in October 2014 the Trust decided to spend £88,000 on upgrading its computer equipment. Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom Official website
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East Midlands (European Parliament constituency)
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East Midlands is an English constituency of the European Parliament in the United Kingdom. Established in 1999 with six members to replace single-member districts, since 2009 it has returned five MEPs, the constituency was organized as a result of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, replacing a number of single-member constituencies. Notes,1 Roger Helmer announced on 12 October 2011 his intention to stand down from the European Parliament. After uncertainty whether his place would be taken by the person on the Conservative Partys list for the East Midlands region, he defected to UKIP. This leaves five MEPs to do the work of six and the electorate have been short-changed, the parliament has no power to remove Mr Kilroy-Silk, who is understood to have attended the minimum number of plenary sessions required to be eligible for his parliamentary allowances. Kilroy-Silk refused to comment on it, the European Parliament does not have any power to expel a member, and Borrell took no action. Elected candidates are shown in bold, brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won
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Louth and Horncastle (UK Parliament constituency)
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Louth and Horncastle is a constituency in Lincolnshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Victoria Atkins, a Conservative. History of boundaries From 1885 to 1983, Louth and Horncastle both existed as separate constituencies, then in 1983, Horncastle was moved into the new seat of Gainsborough and Horncastle, while Louth was moved into the newly formed East Lindsey constituency. These boundaries remained the same until 1997, when the current Louth, the seat was created in 1997. Conservatives have been dominant in the area for decades, the closest result was in 1997, the MP for this seat is Victoria Atkins. She succeeded Peter Tapsell at the 2015 general election and he previously represented the predecessor seats of East Lindsey and Horncastle from 1966 to 1997, and before that represented Nottingham West from 1959 to 1964 before being defeated by Labour. Prior to standing down, he was the longest-serving Conservative MP, albeit with the break in service, following the retirement of Alan Williams, Tapsell became, on his re-election in 2010, Father of the House. He was succeeded in the position in 2015 by Sir Gerald Kaufman. Before 1997, see East Lindsey Louth constituency List of Parliamentary constituencies in Lincolnshire Notes References
Alford
Media related to Alford, Lincolnshire at Wikimedia Commons
