Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. Eligibility varies by country, the voting-eligible population should not be confused with the total adult population. Age and citizenship status are among the criteria used to determine eligibility, but some countries further restrict eligibility based on sex, race, or religion. After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1980s. In general, low turnout is attributed to indifference, or a sense of futility. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote."Low turnout is considered to be undesirable. As a result, there have been many efforts to increase voter turnout and encourage participation in the political process. In spite of significant study into the issue, scholars are divided on the reasons for the decline.
Its cause has been attributed to a wide array of economic, cultural and institutional factors. Different countries have different voter turnout rates. For example, turnout in the United States 2012 presidential election was about 55%. In both Belgium, which has obligatory attendance, Malta, which does not, participation reaches about 95%. In Belgium there is obligatory attendance, misinterpreted as compulsory voting The chance of any one vote determining the outcome is low; some studies show that a single vote in a voting scheme such as the Electoral College in the United States has an lower chance of determining the outcome. Other studies claim that the Electoral College increases voting power. Studies using game theory, which takes into account the ability of voters to interact, have found that the expected turnout for any large election should be zero; the basic formula for determining whether someone will vote, on the questionable assumption that people act rationally, is P B + D > C, where P is the probability that an individual's vote will affect the outcome of an election, B is the perceived benefit that would be received if that person's favored political party or candidate were elected, D stood for democracy or civic duty, but today represents any social or personal gratification an individual gets from voting, C is the time and financial cost involved in voting.
Since P is zero in most elections, PB is near zero, D is thus the most important element in motivating people to vote. For a person to vote, these factors must outweigh C. Experimental political science has found that when P is greater than zero, this term has no effect on voter turnout. Enos and Fowler conducted a field experiment that exploits the rare opportunity of a tied election for major political office. Informing citizens that the special election to break the tie will be close has little mobilizing effect on voter turnout. Riker and Ordeshook developed the modern understanding of D, they listed five major forms of gratification that people receive for voting: complying with the social obligation to vote. Other political scientists have since added other motivators and questioned some of Riker and Ordeshook's assumptions. All of these concepts are inherently imprecise, making it difficult to discover why people choose to vote. Several scholars have considered the possibility that B includes not only a personal interest in the outcome, but a concern for the welfare of others in the society.
In particular, experiments in which subject altruism was measured using a dictator game showed that concern for the well-being of others is a major factor in predicting turnout and political participation. Note that this motivation is distinct from D, because voters must think others benefit from the outcome of the election, not their act of voting in and of itself. There are philosophical and practical reasons that some people cite for not voting in electoral politics. Robert LeFevre, Francis Tandy, John Pugsley, Frank Chodorov, George H. Smith, Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy, Lysander Spooner are some moderately well-known authors who have written about these reasons. High voter turnout is considered to be desirable, though among political scientists and economists specializing in public choice, the issue is still debated. A high turnout is seen as evidence of the legitimacy of the current system. Dictators have fabricated high turnouts in showcase elections for this purpose. For instance, Saddam Hussein's 2002 plebiscite was claimed to have had 100% participation.
Opposition parties sometimes boycott votes they feel are unfair or illegitimate, or if the election is for a government, considered illegitimate. For example, the Holy See instructed Italian Catholics to boycott national elections for several decades after the creation of the state of Italy. In some countries, there are threats of violence against those who vote, such as during the 2005 Iraq elections, an example of voter suppression. However, some political scientists question the view that high turnout is an implicit endorsement of the system. Mark
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west; the county shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames, with the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. The county town is Maidstone. Canterbury Cathedral in Kent has been the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England, since the Reformation. Prior to that it was built by Catholics, dating back to the conversion of England to Catholicism by Saint Augustine that began in the 6th century. Before the English Reformation the cathedral was part of a Benedictine monastic community known as Christ Church, Canterbury, as well as being the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury; the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury was Reginald Pole. Rochester Cathedral is in Kent, in Medway, it is the second-oldest cathedral in England, with Canterbury Cathedral being the oldest. Between London and the Strait of Dover, which separates it from mainland Europe, Kent has seen both diplomacy and conflict, ranging from the Leeds Castle peace talks of 1978 and 2004 to the Battle of Britain in World War II.
England relied on the county's ports to provide warships through much of its history. France can be seen in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county and in the series of valleys in between and to the south are most of the county's 26 castles; because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as "The Garden of England". Kent's economy is diversified. In northwest Kent industries include extraction of aggregate building materials and scientific research. Coal mining has played its part in Kent's industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its strong transport connections to the capital and the nearby continent makes Kent a high-income county. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the North Downs and The High Weald; the name Kent is believed to be of British Celtic origin and was known in Old English as Cent, Cent lond, Centrice.
In Latin sources Kent is mentioned as Canticum. The meaning is explained by some researchers as "coastal district," or "corner-land, land on the edge". If so, the name could be etymologically related to the placename Cantabria a Celtiberian-speaking coastal region in pre-Roman Iberia, today a province of Spain; the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era. There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley; the modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word kantos meaning "rim" or "border", or from a homonymous word kanto "horn, hook". This describes the eastern part of the current county area as coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as um, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC; the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses.
Caesar wrote that the people of Kent are'by far the most civilised inhabitants of Britain'. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730 and recorded as Cent in 835; the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital. In 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity; the Diocese of Canterbury became England's first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained England's centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral. In the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning "undefeated" or "unconquered"; this naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy. The Kent people's continued resistance against the Normans led to Kent's designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067.
Under the nominal rule of William's half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted similar powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales and Scotland. Kent was traditionally partitioned into East and West Kent, into lathes and hundreds; the traditional border of East and West Kent was the Medway. Men and women from east of the Medway are Men of Kent, those from the west are Kentishmen or Kentish Maids. During the medieval and early modern period, Kent played a major role in several of England's most notable rebellions, including the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler,Jack Cade's Kent rebellion of 1450, Wyatt's Rebellion of 1554 against Queen Mary I; the Royal Navy first used the River Medway in 1547. By the reign of Elizabeth I a small dockyard had been established at Chatham. By 1618, storehouses, a ropewalk, a drydock, houses for officials had
Chelsfield
Chelsfield is a large village in south-east London, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Orpington, near London's county border with Kent, it is within the historic boundaries of Kent but has been administered as part of London since 1965. The name is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Cillesfelle", meaning "land of a man called Cēol", it formed an ancient parish, civil parish of 3,378 acres, in Kent. It was part of the Bromley Rural District from 1894; the parish included Green Street Green and Pratt's Bottom and stretched as far as Cudham and Orpington. The parish was abolished in 1934 and its former area became part of the Orpington parish and urban district. In 1965 it was transferred to Greater London. In practice, Chelsfield is split into two distinct areas: the historic Chelsfield Village sited to the east of the main Orpington bypass and New Chelsfield, which grew up in the first half of the 20th century after the sale of some of the Waring family estates. Although only about 1 mile apart from each other, they are different in nature.
The A224, known as Court Road, now separates the historic village from its Anglican church, dedicated to St Martin of Tours and which dates back, in parts, to the 12th Century. Chelsfield Village has a primary school, a playground, a village hall, an allotment and playing fields used by the local cricket club and the site of the annual Village Summer Fair. In the 50s the village fielded a football team of sorts, in the early 60s a ladies hockey team had a pitch next to the village hall; this latter lasted but a couple of seasons. On one corner of the field there was two tennis courts but unused, they'disappeared' late in the 60s. There is a pub, the Five Bells, the church Parish Rooms sited next to the'new' Rectory in Skibbs Lane. There are no shops at all. Neal's Store - a grocer cum ironmonger - closed in the early 60s; the post office, latterly run by Mrs Lambert, closed at a date. The operated Chelsfield Park Hospital is situated on the outskirts of the village, in extensive grounds; the house had a magnificent sweeping staircase going up in the entrance hall.
Post-war'Chelsfield House' was used as a'reception centre' for families awaiting a council house. One family moved from here to a council house at Kilnfields, in Hollybush Lane; the 70s map shows Orlestone Gardens next to the village school, this is the site of the'old' rectory, its large rambling gardens which shared a fence with the school playground. In 1962 the gardens were overgrown and neglected, sporting several decaying beehives - and soon after, the'new' rectory was built in Skibbs Lane. New Chelsfield, has a wide variety of shops along Windsor Drive ranging from a funeral directors and dentist to hairdressers, grocery stores, a betting shop, a fish & chip takeaway and an Indian restaurant. There is a pub, The Chelsfield. Windsor Drive has the Chelsfield Community Centre, a Baptist church and GP's surgery. Chelsfield station connects the area with National Rail services northbound to London Charing Cross via Orpington and Lewisham and southbound to Sevenoaks. Connections can be made at Orpington for London Victoria via Bromley South and Brixton, at Sevenoaks for Hastings via Tunbridge Wells and to Ramsgate via Ashford International and Canterbury West.
Chelsfield is served by Transport for London bus route R1 to St Paul's Cray via Orpington and to Green Street Green and the R7 to Chislehurst via Orpington. Connections can be made at Orpington for buses to Beckenham, Bluewater, Catford, Crystal Palace, Lewisham, Sidcup and Woolwich. Brass Crosby 18th Century parliamentarian and one-time Lord Mayor of London Edith Nesbit Late 19th / Early 20th Century author Michael Oakeshott, English philosopher and political theorist Dora Jessie Saint, better known by her pseudonym of Miss Read, 20th-century author Pratt's Bottom Orpington Green Street Green St Mary Cray Halstead Farnborough St Pauls Cray Petts Wood Crockenhill Eynsford Knockholt Downe Locksbottom Swanley Foots Cray Cudham http://www.chelsfieldhistory.org.uk/index.htm# Chelsfield Community Archive http://meadinkent.co.uk/chelsfieldevents/ Chelsfield Village Events http://www.stmartinchelsfield.org.uk/about.html St Martins of Tours Church, Chelsfield http://www.thefivebells-chelsfieldvillage.co.uk/ Five Bells Pub, Chelsfield Village http://www.gladewoodtaverns.co.uk/chelsfield_orpington.html The Chelsfield Pub
England
England is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to Scotland to the north-northwest; the Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south; the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world; the English language, the Anglican Church, English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, the country's parliamentary system of government has been adopted by other nations.
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the west; the capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom concentrated around London, the South East, conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century; the Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland 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 and Northern Ireland. 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 Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea; the earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was part of the English kingdom of Northumbria; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used; the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe, less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England. An alternative name for England is Albion; the name Albion referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus the 4th-century BC De Mundo: "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth.
In it are two large islands called Britannia. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins, it either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover or from the phrase the "island of the Albiones" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend; the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximate
London Borough of Bromley
The London Borough of Bromley is the most south-eastern of the 32 London boroughs that, along with the City of London, make up Greater London. The borough is named after its principal town; the local authority is Bromley London Borough Council. The borough occupies 59 square miles; the majority of the borough is Metropolitan Green Belt, including nearly all of the land south of the A232-A21 route between West Wickham and Pratts Bottom. It is perhaps the most rural borough and contains more of the North Downs than any other, as that escarpment is broad between Bromley and Banstead. Most of the population lives in the north and west of the borough, with an outlier at Biggin Hill in the far south; the borough shares borders with the London Boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich to the North, Bexley to the North East and Lambeth to the North West, as well as Croydon to the West. It borders the Sevenoaks District of Kent to the East and South, the Tandridge District of Surrey to the South West. Westerham Heights, the highest point in London at an altitude of 804 feet, is on the southern boundary.
The Prime Meridian passes through Bromley. About 30% of the land in Bromley is farmland, the highest figure of a London Borough; the borough was formed on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covered the areas of the Municipal Borough of Bromley, the Municipal Borough of Beckenham, Penge Urban District, Orpington Urban District and the Chislehurst part of Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District; the local government authorities that until had administered those other areas were similtaneously abolished by the London Government Act on 1 April 1965. In 1969, after a local campaign, local government responsibility for the village of Knockholt was transferred to the neighbouring Sevenoaks Rural District: before 1965, it had been part of the Orpington Urban District; the borough is urban and rural, the former to the north and much part of the built-up area of suburban London. The principal parts of the northern section, from west to east, are Beckenham, which includes Eden Park and Elmers End.
The built-up area around Orpington not only encompasses its direct outskirts of Chelsfield, Derry Downs, Goddington and Petts Wood. Other smaller suburban areas include Anerley and nearby Crystal Palace. In addition, parts of Mottingham, Sydenham and Ruxley lie within the borough boundaries. There are two main built-up areas in the southern part of the borough: West Wickham. Biggin Hill and Keston with Leaves Green and Nash are separate, rural settlements. Local attractions include Down House, Chislehurst Caves, Holwood House, Crofton Roman Villa, the site of The Crystal Palace. Bromley is divided into 22 wards with a total of 60 council seats; these are represented by: Conservative: 50 Labour: 8 Independents: 2Bromley was under Conservative control from its creation until the local elections of 7 May 1998 when a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition assumed power. After a number of by-elections and a defection, the Conservatives regained control on 5 July 2001; the 22 wards are shown on the accompanying map.
Ward names straddle the named settlements and suburban areas above: their boundaries are fixed, whereas the latter are not. In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 8,944; this rose throughout the nineteenth century, as the district became built up. When the railways arrived, the rate of population growth increased; the population peaked in the 1970s. In the 2011 UK Census, the borough had a population of 309,392. All major religions are represented, but of those stating a choice, 60.07% described themselves as Christian. In 2001, of the population, 43.47% were in full-time employment and 11.06% in part-time employment – compared to a London average of 42.64% and 8.62%, respectively. Residents were predominantly owner-occupiers, with 32.53% owning their house outright, a further 42.73% owning with a mortgage. Only 1.42% were in local authority housing, with a further 12.74% renting from a housing association, or other registered social landlord. A study in 2017 showed.
The following table shows the ethnic group of respondents in the 2011 census in Bromley. Bromley is one of only six London Boroughs not to have at least one London Underground station within its boundaries. However, the borough has many railway stations served by London Overground, Thameslink and Southern; the borough has several stops on the Tramlink network. It was reported that Boris Johnson plans to introduce either an extension of the Bakerloo Line to Hayes, in Bromley, passing through Beckenham Junction, or an extension of the DLR to Bromley North. One last option is the extension of the London Overground to Bromley North; the most is the extension of the Bakerloo Line, but would not be scheduled to begin till 2040, if accepted. National Rail stations: Crystal Palace Birkbeck Beckenham Junction Shortlands Bromley North Bromley South St Mary Cray Sundridge Park Ravensbourne Bickley Elmstead Woods Chislehurst Petts Wood Orpington Chelsfield Knockholt Kent House Penge East Penge West Anerley Lower Sydenha
Orpington
Orpington is a town and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bromley, Greater London, England, at the south-eastern edge of London's urban sprawl. It is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Before the creation of Greater London in 1965, Orpington was in the county of Kent. Stone Age tools have been found in several areas of Orpington, including Goddington Park, Priory Gardens, the Ramsden estate, Poverest. Early Bronze Age pottery fragments have been found in the Park Avenue area. During the building of Ramsden Boys School in 1956, the remains of an Iron Age farmstead were excavated; the area was occupied in Roman times, as shown by Crofton Roman Villa and the Roman bath-house at Fordcroft. During the Anglo-Saxon period, Fordcroft Anglo-Saxon cemetery was used in the area; the first record of the name Orpington occurs in 1038, when King Cnut's treasurer Eadsy gave land at "Orpedingetune" to the Monastery of Christ Church at Canterbury. The parish church pre-dates the Domesday Book.
On 22 July 1573, Queen Elizabeth I was entertained at Bark Hart and her horses stabled at the Anchor and Hope Inn. On the southern edge of Orpington, Green St Green is recorded as'Grenstretre', which means a road covered with grass, it is known in the 1800s as Greenstead Green. Until the railway came, the local commercial centre was nearby St Mary Cray, rather than Orpington. St Mary Cray had a regular market, industry, whereas Orpington was just a small country village surrounded by soft fruit farms, hop fields and orchards; these crops attracted Romani people, working as itinerant pickers, to annual camps in local meadows and worked-out chalk pits. Although this work has ended, the Borough still provides a permanent site for travellers at Star Lane, historic gatherings are commemorated in local street names, such as Romany Rise. In 1967, Eric Lubbock Liberal MP for Orpington, promoted a Private Member's Bill to provide permanent Gypsy sites. In 1971, an international meeting of Romany people was held at Orpington.
Orpington has been part of the London Borough of Bromley since the 1st of April 1965, previous to this Orpington's local government was the Orpington Urban District. Orpington forms part of the Orpington and the current MP is Jo Johnson who has held the seat since 2010. Gareth Bacon is the London Assembly member for the Bexley and Bromley constituency in which Orpington is located. Orpington's mayor is Councillor Ian Payne due to Orpington being a part of the London Borough of Bromley. 2011 census data reports that the population of Orpington was 15,311 with 52% being female leaving 48% male. The average age is 42 above the national average age of 40. 86% of Orpington's population was born in England, second is Scotland with 1.1%. 95.1% of Orpington's population speak English, second is all other Chinese with just 0.4%. Christianity is the prominent religion in Orpington with 63.1% of the population identifying as Christian, no religion was second with 24.4% and Muslim third at 2.1%. Notably 45 people identify as 5 Buddhist as their religion.
51.1% of the local population is married, 23.8% are single, 8.2% cohabit with a partner of the opposite sex and 0.5% cohabit with a partner of the same sex. The leading occupation is professionals who make up 19.2% of the population followed by administrative and secretarial at 16.2%. After the Conservative member for the Orpington constituency, Donald Sumner, had resigned to become a county court judge, a by-election was held on 15 March 1962. Orpington was considered a safe Conservative seat, but Eric Lubbock, the Liberal candidate, won with a 22% swing away from the Conservatives; the result was headline news across the nation. It is from this win that the revival of the Liberal Party is dated; the High Street and adjacent Walnuts Shopping Centre contain a variety of high-street shops. There is a general market three days a week in front of Orpington College. A large Tesco supermarket opened in 2009 on the site of a former multi-storey car park. There are several restaurants in the town centre.
A restricted parking zone was introduced into Orpington high street, which enabled the council to wipe away road markings indicating parking restrictions. By combining the lack of markings, with CCTV monitoring, the council has been able to reduce the amount of street clutter and improve the quality of the High Street environment. There are ` big box' retail outlets including the new Nugent Shopping Park. Following the relocation of Marks & Spencer from their town-centre store to the Nugent Shopping Park, their previous site was taken over by Sainsbury's, who moved from their site nearby in the Walnuts; the Walnuts Leisure Centre, just east of the High Street, has a six-lane, 33.3 metre indoor swimming pool, squash courts and a gym with sauna and steam room, as well as a sports hall used for activities such as badminton, basketball and fitness classes. The sports hall is used for Women's Artistic Gymnastics, the leisure centre has been the main training venue for Orpington Gymnastic Club since the opening of the centre.
The Walnuts has been home to the Orpington Ojays swimming club for nearly 40 years. The club caters for those learning to swim right through to elite swimmers who wish to swim competitively at county and national level. There are other leisure centres such as one situated at Harris Academy Orpingt
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and second most populous urban area of New Zealand, with 418,500 residents. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the major population centre of the southern North Island, is the administrative centre of the Wellington Region, which includes the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, its latitude is 41°17′S, making it the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Wellington features a temperate maritime climate, is the world's windiest city by average wind speed; the Wellington urban area comprises four local authorities: Wellington City, on the peninsula between Cook Strait and Wellington Harbour, contains the central business district and about half the population. As the nation's capital since 1865, the New Zealand Government and Parliament, Supreme Court and most of the public service are based in the city. Architectural sights include the Government Building—one of the largest wooden buildings in the world—as well as the iconic Beehive.
Wellington is home to several of the largest and oldest cultural institutions in the nation such the National Archives, the National Library, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, numerous theatres. It plays host to many artistic and cultural organisations, including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Royal New Zealand Ballet. One of the world's most liveable cities, the 2016 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Wellington 12th in the world. Wellington's economy is service-based, with an emphasis on finance, business services, government, it is the centre of New Zealand's film and special effects industries, a hub for information technology and innovation, with two public research universities. Wellington is one of New Zealand's chief seaports and serves both domestic and international shipping; the city is served by the third busiest airport in the country. Wellington's transport network includes train and bus lines which reach as far as the Kapiti Coast and Wairarapa, ferries connect the city to the South Island.
Wellington takes its name from Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo: his title comes from the town of Wellington in the English county of Somerset. It was named in November 1840 by the original settlers of the New Zealand Company on the suggestion of the directors of the same, in recognition of the Duke's strong support for the company's principles of colonisation and his "strenuous and successful defence against its enemies of the measure for colonising South Australia". One of the founders of the settlement, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, reported that the settlers "took up the views of the directors with great cordiality and the new name was at once adopted". In the Māori language, Wellington has three names. Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara refers to Wellington Harbour and means "the great harbour of Tara". In New Zealand Sign Language, the name is signed by raising the index and ring fingers of one hand, palm forward, to form a "W", shaking it from side to side twice.
The city's location close to the mouth of the narrow Cook Strait leads to its vulnerability to strong gales, leading to the city's nickname of "Windy Wellington". Legends recount that Kupe explored the district in about the 10th century; the earliest date with hard evidence for Maori living in New Zealand is about 1280. Situated near the geographic centre of the country, Wellington was well placed for trade. In 1839 it was chosen as the first major planned settlement for British immigrants coming to New Zealand; the settlement was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo. European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the Aurora on 22 January 1840. Food processing plants, engineering industries, vehicle assembly and oil refineries were located in the NE which caused the main industrial growth in Hutt valley; the settlers constructed their first homes at Petone on the flat area at the mouth of the Hutt River.
When that proved swampy and flood-prone they transplanted the plans, drawn without regard for the hilly terrain. In 1865, Wellington became the capital city in place of Auckland, which William Hobson had made the capital in 1841; the New Zealand Parliament had first met in Wellington on 7 July 1862, on a temporary basis. There had been some concerns that the more populous South Island would choose to form a separate colony in the British Empire. Several Commissioners invited from Australia, chosen for their neutral status, declared that Wellington was a suitable location because of
Media related to Pratt's Bottom at Wikimedia Commons
