Watermead Country Park
The Watermead Country Park is a network of artificial lakes in the valley of the River Soar and the old Grand Union Canal, to the north of Leicester, in the Borough of Charnwood in Leicestershire. It runs north to south along the path of the watercourses, with Birstall to the west and Thurmaston to the east; the parks provide bird watching and watersports facilities, are managed by a partnership of Leicestershire County Council, Leicester City Council and Charnwood Borough Council. The park includes three Local Nature Reserves, Reedbed - Watermead Country Park, Watermead Country Park - South and Birstall Meadows; the northern-most lake is named John Merricks Lake, after the late John Merricks, a silver Olympic medallist who competed in sailing events on a nearby lake as a schoolboy. He died in a car accident in 1997. Further south is King Lear's Lake, a popular fishing lake which can be circumnavigated and is popular with people walking dogs and cyclists. A statue on the western side of the lake depicts the final scene of Shakespeare's play King Lear.
The lake is used for open water swim training by Leicester Triathlon Club, for water training of Newfoundland Dogs. There are several further artificial lakes continuing south following the course of the canal ending with the southern-most lake referred to as the Mammoth lake due to the presence of a large statue of a Mammoth atop a small hill aside the lake, from where one can see Leicester and the surrounding area for some distance in either direction. There was a previous woolly mammoth where the current one stands, although it was burned down in an arson attack several years ago; the Millennium Mammoth was built to commemorate the discovery of ice age mammoth remains found when Watermead was a quarry. In January 2010, two brothers died after falling into one of the frozen lakes, they had been plucked from the lake by a police officer, leaning out of a helicopter hovering above the frozen surface. Media related to Watermead Country Park at Wikimedia Commons Watermead Country Park Leicester Triathlon Club'Paddlepaws' website describing water training of Newfoundland dogs
Mayor of Leicester
The directly elected mayor of Leicester is responsible for the executive function of Leicester City Council. The incumbent is Peter Soulsby of Labour. In December 2010 the Labour controlled Leicester City Council approved plans to give the city a directly elected Mayor with responsibility for all council decisions during their four-year term and for selecting up to nine councillors as a supporting cabinet; the creation of the post was approved by Leicester City Council on 10 December 2010. A referendum on establishing a directly elected mayoralty was not held; the first election took place in May 2011. The first mayoral election on 5 May 2011 saw Peter Soulsby elected as mayor in the first round. Soulsby won re-election in 2015, again polling more than half the first preference vote to win on the first round
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England, the county town of Leicestershire. The city close to the eastern end of the National Forest; the 2016 mid year estimate of the population of the City of Leicester unitary authority was 348,300, an increase of 18,500 from the 2011 census figure of 329,839, making it the most populous municipality in the East Midlands region. The associated urban area is the 11th most populous in England and the 13th most populous in the United Kingdom. Leicester is at the intersection of two major railway lines—the north/south Midland Main Line and the east/west Birmingham to London Stansted CrossCountry line. Leicester is the home to football club Leicester City and rugby club Leicester Tigers; the name of Leicester is recorded in the 9th-century History of the Britons as Cair Lerion, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Ligora-ceastre. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is recorded as Ledecestre; the first element of the name, Ligora or Legora, is explained as a Brittonic river name, in a suggestion going back to William Somner an earlier name of the River Soar, cognate with the name of the Loire.
The second element of the name comes from the Latin castrum, reflected in both Welsh cair and Anglo-Saxon ceastre. Based on the Welsh name, Geoffrey of Monmouth proposes a king Leir of Britain as an eponymous founder in his Historia Regum Britanniae. Leicester is one of the oldest cities in England, with a history going back at least two millennia; the native Iron Age settlement encountered by the Romans at the site seems to have developed in the 2nd or 1st centuries BC. Little is known about this settlement or the condition of the River Soar at this time, although roundhouses from this era have been excavated and seem to have clustered along 8 hectares of the east bank of the Soar above its confluence with the Trent; this area of the Soar was split into two channels: a main stream to the east and a narrower channel on the west, with a marshy island between. The settlement seems to have controlled a ford across the larger channel; the Roman name was a latinate form of the Brittonic word for "ramparts", suggesting the site was an oppidum.
The plural form of the name suggests it was composed of several villages. The Celtic tribe holding the area was recorded as the "Coritanians" but an inscription recovered in 1983 showed this to have been a corruption of the original "Corieltauvians"; the Corieltauvians are believed to have ruled over the area of the East Midlands. It is believed that the Romans arrived in the Leicester area around AD 47, during their conquest of southern Britain; the Corieltauvian settlement lay near a bridge on the Fosse Way, a Roman road between the legionary camps at Isca and Lindum. It remains unclear whether the Romans fortified and garrisoned the location, but it developed from around the year 50 onwards as the tribal capital of the Corieltauvians under the name Ratae Corieltauvorum. In the 2nd century, it received a bathhouse. In 2013, the discovery of a Roman cemetery found just outside the old city walls and dating back to AD 300 was announced; the remains of the baths of Roman Leicester can be seen at the Jewry Wall.
Knowledge of the town following the Roman withdrawal from Britain is limited. There is some continuation of occupation of the town, though on a much reduced scale in the 5th and 6th centuries, its memory was preserved as the Cair Lerion of the History of the Britons. Following the Saxon invasion of Britain, Leicester was occupied by the Middle Angles and subsequently administered by the kingdom of Mercia, it was elevated to a bishopric in either 679 or 680. Their settlement became one of the Five Burghs of the Danelaw, although this position was short-lived; the Saxon bishop, fled to Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester did not become a bishopric again until the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral in 1927. The settlement was recorded under the name Ligeraceaster in the early 10th century. Following the Norman conquest, Leicester was recorded by William's Domesday Book as Ledecestre, it was noted as a city but lost this status in the 11th century owing to power struggles between the Church and the aristocracy and did not become a legal city again until 1919.
Geoffrey of Monmouth composed his History of the Kings of Britain around the year 1136, naming a King Leir as an eponymous founder figure. According to Geoffrey's narrative, Cordelia had buried her father beneath the river in a chamber dedicated to Janus and his feast day was an annual celebration; when Simon de Montfort became Lord of Leicester in 1231, he gave the city a grant to expel the Jewish population "in my time or in the time of any of my heirs to the end of the world". He justified his action as being "for the good of my soul, for the souls of my ancestors and successors". Leicester's Jews were allowed to move to the eastern suburbs, which were controlled by de Montfort's great-aunt and rival, Countess of Winchester, after she took advice from the scholar and cleric Robert Grosseteste. There is evidence that Jews remained there until 1253, enforcement of the banishment within the city was not rigorously enforced. De Montfort however issued a second edict for the expulsion of Leicester's Jews in 1253, after Grosseteste's death.
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East Midlands
The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It consists of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland; the region has an area of 15,627 km2, with a population over 4.5 million in 2011. There are five main urban centres, Leicester, Lincoln and Nottingham. Others include Boston, Chesterfield, Grantham, Kettering, Mansfield, Newark-on-Trent and Wellingborough. Relative proximity to London and its position on the national motorway and trunk road networks help the East Midlands to thrive as an economic hub. Nottingham and Leicester are each classified as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network; the region is served by East Midlands Airport, which lies between Derby and Nottingham. 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, in the Lincolnshire Wolds.
The region's major rivers, the Nene, the Soar, the Trent and the Welland, flow in a northeasterly direction towards the Humber and the Wash. The Derwent, 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 between Bingham and Bottesford, Leicestershire. The geographical centre of England lies in Higham on the Hill in west Leicestershire, close to the boundary between the Leicestershire and Warwickshire; some 88 per cent of the land is rural in character, although agriculture accounts for less than three per cent of the region's jobs. Lincolnshire is the only maritime county of the six, with a true North Sea coastline of about 30 miles due to the protection afforded by Spurn Head and the North Norfolk foreshore. 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 and Newark Castle railway station. The National Centre for Earth Observation is at the University of Leicester; the region is home to large quantities of limestone, the East Midlands Oil Province. Charnwood Forest is noted for its abundant levels of volcanic rock, estimated to be 600 million years old. A quarter of the UK's cement is manufactured in the region, at three sites in Hope and Tunstead in Derbyshire, Ketton Cement Works in Rutland. Of the aggregates produced in the region, 25 per cent are from Derbyshire and four per cent from Leicestershire. Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire each produce around 30 per cent of the region's sand and gravel output. Barwell in Leicestershire was the site of Britain's largest meteorite on 24 December 1965; the 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake was 5.2 in magnitude. Areas of the East Midlands designated by the East Midlands Biodiversity Partnership as Biodiversity Conservation Areas include: Charnwood Forest Coversand Heaths Derbyshire Peak Fringe and Lower Derwent Humberhead Levels Leighland Forest The Lincolnshire Limewoods and Heaths The Lincolnshire coast The Peak District Rockingham Forest Sherwood Forest Rutland, SW Lincolnshire and N Northamptonshire The Wash Areas of the East Midlands designated by the East Midlands Biodiversity Partnership as Biodiversity Enhancement Areas include: The Coalfields The Daventry Grasslands The Fens The Lincolnshire Coastal Grazing Marshes The Lincolnshire Wolds The National Forest The Yardley-Whittlewood RidgeTwo of the nationally designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are: The Peak District The Lincolnshire Wolds Several towns in the southern part of the region, including Market Harborough, Rothwell, Kettering, Thrapston and Stamford, lie within the boundaries of what was once Rockingham Forest – designated a royal forest by William the Conqueror and was long hunted by English kings and queens.
The National Forest is an environmental project in central England run by The National Forest Company. Areas of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and south-east Staffordshire covering around 200 square miles are being planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodland with new plantings, it stretches from the western outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, is planned to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood. Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire attracts many visitors, is best known for its ties with the legend of Robin Hood. Regional financial funding decisions for the East Midlands are taken by East Midlands Councils, based in Melton Mowbray. East Midlands Councils is an unelected body made up of representatives of local government in the region; the defunct East Midlands Development Agency was headquartered next to the BBC's East Midlands office in Nottingham and made financial decisions regarding economic development in the region. Since the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government launched its austerity programme after the 2010 general election, regional bodies such as those have been devolved to smaller groups now on a county level.
As a region today, there is no overriding body with significant financial or planning powers for the East Midlands. The East Midlands' largest settlements are Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, Mansfield and Kettering. Leicester is the largest
Thurmaston
Thurmaston is a village and civil parish in Leicestershire, located within the Borough of Charnwood. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 9,668, it is situated four miles north of the city centre of Leicester and lies just outside the A563, Leicester's outer ring road. Thurmaston is bounded to the west by Watermead Country Park, to the north by Syston and to the east by Barkby and Barkby Thorpe. South of Thurmaston is the boundaries of the Leicester urban area. Rushey Mead was part of the Thurmaston parish in the 19th century, before becoming a Thurmaston Urban District in 1894. In 1935, the district was annexed to the city of Leicester where it took its modern-day name of Rushey Mead. Thurmaston is split in two by the A607 dual carriageway. To the east of the road is the residential, newer part of Thurmaston. To the west is the main village on Melton Road, which stands on the old Fosse Way, the historic road built by the Romans. Thurmaston lies on the eastern banks of the River Soar, two marinas are located there, one of, a boat-yard, numerous mooring sites.
These lead to the Watermead Country Park, a purpose-built nature reserve. The Midland Main Line runs through the eastern half of the village. Taylorcraft Aeroplanes Ltd. a subsidiary based in Thurmaston, developed the Taylorcraft Model'D' and the Auster Mk. I through Mk. V, which became the backbone aircraft of the British A. O. P; the local football team, the Thurmaston Magpies, once boasted former England international striker/defender Dion Dublin in its ranks. Thurmaston contains three Key Stages 1 and 2 primary schools: Bishop Ellis Catholic Primary School Eastfield Primary School Church Hill Infant School and Church Hill C of E Junior SchoolIt contains a Key Stage 3 secondary school, The Roundhill Academy, which takes in students from all the aforementioned schools in the village, as well as schools in the neighbouring town of Syston. Students in Thurmaston aged 14–18 go on to attend Wreake Valley Academy in Syston, the nearest Key Stage 4 college in the Charnwood district. Thurmaston's prominent location on the edge of Leicester has seen much development in recent years.
On 31 March 2003, a large Asda superstore opened on Barkby Thorpe Lane, pushing the nearby Midlands Co-op superstore out of business. The Thurmaston Shopping Centre, featuring a number of retail outlets and restaurants, was built on the site of the old Co-op superstore in 2005; the main village stretch, along Melton Road, has several pubs, takeaway food outlets, convenience stores and various other small retail establishments. The head offices of Arriva Midlands are located in the village, along with Arriva's Thurmaston depot where the majority of their buses and drivers that operate in Leicester are based; as well as many other industrial sites along Melton Road, Thurmaston contains the Earls Way Industrial Estate in the eastern half of the village. The village has its own newspaper, The Thurmaston Times, published bi-monthly; the village has a local history society, Thurmaston Heritage Group, whose members help promote an interest in different aspects of both past and present village life.
One particular activity being pursued by a member of the group is the creation of an online virtual war memorial. The Thurmaston Military Indexes are being compiled to provide a listing of all those from the village who served their country in the Great War of 1914-1918 and the 1939-1945 War; the village has its own community centre, Elizabeth Park Sports and Community Centre, which has become a popular wedding venue and offers a range of sports and facilities including badminton and a state of the art 3G football pitch. The facility was built in 1996, is home to Thurmaston Parish Council Offices. Elizabeth Park is host to many of the local communities sports teams, such as Thurmaston Town FC and Thurmaston Bowls club. Thurmaston is served by a number of bus companies including Arriva Fox County, First Leicester and Centrebus; the nearest railway station is in Syston. Charnwood borough council's local transport plan from 2004 proposed new railway stations to be opened at Thurmaston and East Goscote.
This has since been removed from the local plan. Offranville, Upper Normandy, France Thurmaston Parish Council Thurmaston @ Leicestershire Villages Thurmaston.com
East Midlands Ambulance Service
East Midlands Ambulance Service National Health Service Trust provides emergency 999, urgent care and patient transport services for the 4.8 million people within the East Midlands region of the UK - covering Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. In 2016/17 EMAS received over 938,837 emergency 999 calls with ambulance clinicians dispatched to 653,215 incidents. EMAS employs about 3,290 staff at more than 70 locations, including two control rooms at Nottingham and Lincoln - the largest staff group are those who provide accident and emergency responses to 999 calls. In 2013 EMAS took on 140 new emergency care assistants. In 2014 EMAS announced. In 2010 − 11 EMAS missed key performance targets after a cold spell brought ice. By June 2015 EMAS had failed to meet their category 1 response times for the fifth successive year. EMAS 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 ambulance services in 2013−14 for support in busy periods. In 2015 the service 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. In 2018 the trust said it would need an extra £20 million a year to meet the new ambulance performance standards. Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom Official website
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warwickshire to the south-west, Staffordshire to the west, Derbyshire to the north-west; the border with most of Warwickshire is Watling Street. Leicestershire takes its name from the city of Leicester located at its centre and administered separately from the rest of the county; the ceremonial county has a total population of just over 1 million, more than half of which lives in'Greater Leicester'. Leicestershire was recorded in the Domesday Book in four wapentakes: Guthlaxton, Framland and Gartree; these became hundreds, with the division of Goscote into West Goscote and East Goscote, the addition of Sparkenhoe hundred. In 1087, the first recorded use of the name was as Laegrecastrescir. Leicestershire's external boundaries have changed little since the Domesday Survey; the Measham-Donisthorpe exclave of Derbyshire has been exchanged for the Netherseal area, the urban expansion of Market Harborough has caused Little Bowden in Northamptonshire to be annexed.
In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 abolished the county borough status of Leicester city and the county status of neighbouring Rutland, converting both to administrative districts of Leicestershire. These actions were reversed on 1 April 1997, when Rutland and the City of Leicester became unitary authorities. Rutland became a distinct Ceremonial County once again, although it continues to be policed by Leicestershire Constabulary; the symbol of the county council, Leicestershire County Cricket Club and Leicester City FC, is the fox. Leicestershire is considered to be the birthplace of fox hunting. Hugo Meynell, who lived in Quorn, is known as the father of fox hunting. Melton Mowbray and Market Harborough have associations with fox hunting, as has neighbouring Rutland. Leicestershire and Herefordshire are the only three English counties lacking a registered flag. A design was proposed for Leicestershire in 2017 based on symbols associated with the county – a fox and a cinquefoil; the River Soar together with its tributaries and canalisations constitutes the principal river basin of the county, although the River Avon and River Welland through Harborough and along the county's southern boundaries are significant.
The Soar rises between Hinckley and Lutterworth, towards the south of the county near the Warwickshire border, flows northwards, bisecting the county along its north/south axis, through'Greater' Leicester and to the east of Loughborough where its course within the county comes to an end. It continues north marking the boundary with Nottinghamshire for some 10 kilometres before joining the River Trent at the point where Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire meet; the geographical centre of England is in Leicestershire, near Fenny Drayton in the southwest of the county. In 2013, the Ordnance Survey calculated. A large part of the north-west of the county, around Coalville, forms part of the new National Forest area extending into Derbyshire and Staffordshire; the highest point of the county is Bardon Hill at 278 metres, a Marilyn. 150–200 metres and above in nearby Charnwood Forest and to the east of the county around Launde Abbey. The lowest point, at an altitude of about 20 metres, is located at the county's northernmost tip close to Bottesford where the River Devon flowing through the Vale of Belvoir leaves Leicestershire and enters Nottinghamshire.
This results in an altitude differential of around 257.5 metres and a mean altitude of 148.75 metres. The population of Leicestershire is 609,578 people; the county covers an area of 2,084 km2. Its largest population centre is the city of Leicester, followed by the town of Loughborough. Other large towns include Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Hinckley, Market Harborough, Melton Mowbray, Oadby and Lutterworth; some of the larger of villages are:Burbage Birstall, Broughton Astley, Castle Donington, Kibworth Beauchamp, Great Glen, Ibstock and Kegworth. One of the most expanding villages is Anstey, which has seen a large number of development schemes; the United Kingdom Census 2001 showed a total resident population for Leicester of 279,921, a 0.5% decrease from the 1991 census. 62,000 were aged under 16, 199,000 were aged 16–74, 19,000 aged 75 and over. 76.9% of Leicester's population claim they have been born in the UK, according to the 2001 UK Census. Mid-year estimates for 2006 indicate that the population of the City of Leicester stood at 289,700 making Leicester the most populous city in East Midlands.
The population density is 3,814/km2 and for every 100 females, there were 92.9 males. Of those aged 16–74 in Leicester, 38.5% had no academic qualifications higher than 28.9% in all of England. 23.0% of Leicester's residents were born outside of the United Kingdom, more than double than the English average of 9.2%. Engineering has long been an important part of the economy of Leicestershire. John Taylor Bellfounders co
