1.
Tynemouth (UK Parliament constituency)
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Tynemouth is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Alan Campbell, a member of the Labour Party. The seat covers Tynemouth, North Shields, Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, Monkseaton and this effectively meant the constituency stretched only as far north as Whitley Bay and Earsdon, while extending quite far along the north bank of the Tyne, touching the edge of Wallsend. The A19 road acted as a straight inland boundary in all instances, the constituency was created under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. However, since the 1997 general election, it has been represented by a Labour MP, prominent frontbenchers The present member, Alan Campbell reached the level of government below a Minister of State in 2008, as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office. A coastal seat on the bank of the Tyne. North Shields and the communities along the Tyne itself tend to be industrial and working class. The coastal towns to the north, such as Whitley Bay and this has tended to be one of the more Conservative seats in the Tory desert that is the North East. As a relatively middle class area it returned Conservative MPs from 1950 to 1997 and it has been represented by Labour since 1997, though the Conservatives remain strong at a local level. Constituency created The Liberal Democrats selected North Heaton Councillor Greg Stone in 2016, with a local Whitley Bay councillor as their candidate, the Conservatives hoped to snatch the seat, but could only diminish Labours Alan Campbells majority. In the Mayoral election held on the day, Mayor Linda Arkley also failed to be re-elected. Labour MP Alan Campbell was returned in 2001 with smaller majority on the back of Tony Blairs second landslide, in 1997 Labour won their largest Tynemouth majority ever. The Conservatives chose Gateshead Councillor Martin Callanan as their candidate to replace the retiring Neville Trotter and he would latterly become a North East MEP. In 1992 Neville Trotter narrowly won his final term as the Labour candidates fourth attempt failed, many council seats were also unexpectedly won on the back of John Majors victory such as Whitley Bay and Monkseaton. 1983, Neville Trotters biggest majority on the back of Mrs. Thatchers landslide,1979, Patrick Paddy Cosgroves first of four attempts to win the seat. Cosgrove was the Labour councillor for Whitley Bay Ward, february 1974, Neville Trotter, a Newcastle City Councillor and Chartered Accountant, becomes MP. 1970, Jeremy Beecham would later become leader of Newcastle City Council,1966, Gordon Adam would latterly become a North East MEP and make a failed bid to become Elected Mayor of North Tyneside in 2001. Denotes a candidate given the coupon as the official Coalition candidate,1918, Dixon Scott was the founder of Newcastles News Cinema, the modern Tyneside Cinema. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Tyne and Wear Notes References
2.
Tynemouth Castle and Priory
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Tynemouth Castle is located on a rocky headland, overlooking Tynemouth Pier. The moated castle-towers, gatehouse and keep are combined with the ruins of the Benedictine priory where early kings of Northumbria were buried, the coat of arms of the town of Tynemouth still includes three crowns commemorating the tradition that the Priory had been the burial place for three kings. Little is known of the history of the site. Some Roman stones have been there, but there is no definite evidence that it was occupied by the Romans. The Priory was founded early in the 7th century, perhaps by Edwin of Northumbria, in 651 Oswin, king of Deira was murdered by the soldiers of King Oswiu of Bernicia, and subsequently his body was brought to Tynemouth for burial. He became St Oswin and his burial place became a shrine visited by pilgrims and he was the first of the three kings buried at Tynemouth. In 792 Osred II, who had been king of Northumbria from 789 to 790 and he also was buried at Tynemouth Priory. Osred was the second of the three buried at Tynemouth. The third king to be buried at Tynemouth was Malcolm III, king of Scotland, the kings body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander I, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona. In 800 the Danes plundered Tynemouth Priory, and afterwards the monks strengthened the fortifications sufficiently to prevent the Danes from succeeding when they attacked again in 832, however, in 865 the church and monastery were destroyed by the Danes. At the same time, the nuns of St Hilda, who had there for safety, were massacred. The priory was plundered by the Danes in 870. The priory was destroyed by the Danes in 875, the small parish church of St Mary remained. Earl Tostig made Tynemouth his fortress during the reign of Edward the Confessor, by that time, the priory had been abandoned and the burial place of St Oswin had been forgotten. According to legend, the St Oswin appeared in a vision to Edmund, a novice, the saint showed Edmund where his body lay and so the tomb was re-discovered in 1065. Tostig was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 and so was not able to re-found the monastery as he had intended. In 1074 Waltheof II, Earl of Northumbria, last of the Anglo-Saxon earls, granted the church to the monks of Jarrow together with the body of St Oswin, monks were sent from St Albans in 1090 to colonise the new monastery. However, when the abbot of St Albans visited in 1093, Prior Thurgot of Durham met him, thereafter, William Rufus held St. Oswin in great reverence
3.
Tyne and Wear
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Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in the North East region of England around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972 and it consists of the five metropolitan boroughs of South Tyneside, North Tyneside, City of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and City of Sunderland. It is bounded on the east by the North Sea, and has borders with Northumberland to the north, Tyne and Wear County Council was abolished in 1986, and so its districts are now unitary authorities. However, the county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference. The Local Government Act 1888 constituted Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, between the county boroughs, various other settlements also formed part of the administrative counties of Durham and of Northumberland. The need to reform local government on Tyneside was recognised by the government as early as 1935, the second-tier units would form by amalgamating the various existing boroughs and districts. The county boroughs in the area would lose their status, within this area, a single municipality would be formed covering the four county boroughs of Newcastle, Gateshead, Tynemouth, South Shields and other urban districts and boroughs. A minority report proposed amalgamation of Newcastle, Gateshead, Wallsend, Jarrow, Felling, Gosforth, the 1937 proposals never came into operation, local authorities could not agree on a scheme and the legislation of the time did not allow central government to compel one. Tyneside was a Special Review Area under the Local Government Act 1958, the Local Government Commission for England came back with a recommendation to create a new county of Tyneside based on the review area, divided into four separate boroughs. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed a Tyneside unitary authority, again excluding Sunderland, the Bill as presented in November 1971 pruned back the southern edge of the area, and gave it the name Tyneside. The name Tyneside proved controversial on Wearside, and a government amendment changed the name to Tyne, although the metropolitan county council was abolished in 1986, several joint bodies exist to run certain services on a county-wide basis. Most notable is the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority, which co-ordinates transport policy, also through Nexus, the authority subsidises socially necessary transport services and operates a concessionary fares scheme for the elderly and disabled. The Passenger Transport Authority is an authority, raising funds by imposing a levy on the Council Tax of the five constituent authorities of Tyne. In April 2014 Nexus became a body of the new North East Combined Authority. These joint bodies are administered by representatives of all five of the constituent councils, in addition the Northumbria Police force, which covers the whole of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, is one of several joint forces in England spanning two or more counties. The force was created in 1974, and so is not a by-product of the abolition of the county council, Tyne and Wear either has or closely borders two official Met Office stations, neither located in one of the major urban centres. The locations for those are in marine Tynemouth where Tyne meets the North Sea east of Newcastle, there are some clear differences between the stations temperature and precipitation patterns even though both have a cool-summer and mild-winter oceanic climate. Tyne and Wear is divided into 13 Parliamentary constituencies, at the level of local government, three of the regions five unitary authorities were controlled by Labour in 2005, the exceptions being Newcastle City Council and North Tyneside Council
4.
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
5.
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
6.
North Tyneside
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The Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England, and is part of the Tyneside conurbation. The borough councils main office is at Cobalt Business Park in Wallsend, the local authority is North Tyneside Council. North Tyneside is bounded by Newcastle upon Tyne to the west, the North Sea to the east, within its bounds are the towns of Wallsend, North Shields, Killingworth and Whitley Bay, which form a continuously built-up area contiguous with Newcastle. As of March 2016, the council is Labour led, Labour having 51 councillors, the Conservatives 7 and the Lib Dems 2. The council is elected in thirds, with one councillor from each ward elected each year for the first three years, the mayoral election being held on the fourth year. With three councillors elected from each of 20 wards, there are 60 councillors in total, North Tyneside lies in the coalfield that covers the South-East of the historic county of Northumberland. It has traditionally been a centre of industry along with the rest of Tyneside, with for example the Swan Hunter shipyard in Wallsend. Today most of the industry has gone, leaving high unemployment in some areas. The borough is the 69th most deprived in England, out of 354, however some parts function as wealthy dormitory suburbs of Newcastle, such as Tynemouth. Recent growth has come in the A19 corridor with new industrial estates, two key roads serve North Tyneside, The A19 which leaves the A1 north of Newcastle and runs through the borough and then through the Tyne Tunnel to South Tyneside, Teesside and towards the South. The Coast Road runs from Newcastle to the coast, for most of its length it is grade-separated. North Tyneside is served by 17 stations on the Tyne & Wear Metro on a loop from Newcastle through Wallsend, North Shields, Whitley Bay, Benton, trains operate at least every 15 minutes, with extra services in the peak hours. Most of the stations serving North Tyneside fall into fare zones B and C, there are no National Rail stations in the borough, despite the East Coast Main Line and Blyth and Tyne routes passing through. The nearest National Rail station is Newcastle Central, which is served by the Tyne. North Tyneside has a bus network, with most areas benefiting from direct services to Newcastle. Many areas have direct bus services to Cramlington, Blyth or Morpeth, the principle bus operators in the area are Arriva, Go North-East and Stagecoach in Newcastle. The Shields Ferry links North Shields to South Shields, in South Tyneside, there is an international ferry terminal at Royal Quays in North Shields, with a service to Amsterdam. Segedunum Roman fort is in Wallsend, the Stephenson Railway Museum in New York, named after George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson who hailed from Tyneside and lived in West Moor in North Tyneside 1802–1824
7.
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
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North East England
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North East England is one of the nine regions of England that are classified at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, the region is home to three large conurbations, Teesside, Wearside, and Tyneside, the latter of which is the largest of the three and the eighth most populous conurbation in the United Kingdom. The city of Durham is the county town of County Durham, other large settlements in the region include Darlington, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, South Shields, Stockton-on-Tees and Washington. The region is hilly and sparsely populated in the North and West. The highest point in the region is The Cheviot, in the Cheviot Hills, Peters Church in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland and St. Pauls in Jarrow also hold significant historical value and have a joint bid to become a World Heritage Site. The area has a strong religious past, as can be seen in such as the Lindisfarne Gospels. The work of the 7th-century Cuthbert, Bede and Hilda of Whitby being hugely influential in the church and are still venerated today. Bede is regarded as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar and his best known work is The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This body of work is thought to have been done in honour of Cuthbert, British history changed forever that day and three hundred years of Viking raids, battles and settlement were to persist until William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings in 1066. The last independent Northumbrian king from 947–8 was Eric Bloodaxe who died in battle at the Battle of Stainmore, Westmorland, after Eric Bloodaxes death, all England was ruled by Eadred the grandson of Alfred the Great and so began the machinery of national government. Today the Viking legacy can still be found in the language and place names of Northeast England, the name Newcastle comes from the new castle built shortly after their conquest in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conquerors eldest son. North East England has a climate with narrower temperature ranges than further south in England. Met Office operates several stations in the region. The stations nearest significant urban areas are Durham, Stockton-on-Tees and Tynemouth, the warmest summers in the region are found in Stockton-on-Tees and the Middlesbrough area with a 1981-2010 July average high of 20.4 °C. The summers on the coastlines are clearly cooler than in the southern and central inland areas. Moving further inland, frosts during winter gets more common due to the higher elevation and these companies are members of the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster. The early chemical industry in this region was however primarily Tyneside based and associated with the manufacture of soap and glass. The most important chemical activity in the 18th and 19th centuries was the manufacture of alkali to make soap, what came out of the industrial revolution was a period when the Northeast of Englands economy was dominated by iron and steel, coal mining and shipbuilding
9.
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
10.
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
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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
12.
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
13.
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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Northumbria Police
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Northumbria Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the areas of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear in North East England. Northumbria Police is the sixth largest police force in England and Wales with 3,486 police officers,1,505 police staff,245 special constables and 200 police community support officers, the force headquarters are located at Middle Engine lane in Wallsend, North Tyneside. The current Chief Constable is Steve Ashman, whose appointment by Northumbria Police, former chief constables include Sir Stanley Bailey, John Stevens, Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, Crispian Strachan CBE, Mike Craik and Sue Sim. Northumbria is Home Office force 10, the force was formed in 1974 and was a merger of the old Northumberland Constabulary along with part of the Durham Constabulary. Under proposals made by the Home Secretary on 6 February 2006, Northumbria was to merge with Cleveland Police, both Northumbria and Durham favoured this proposal, while Cleveland expressed a wish that it be merged with the southern area of the Durham force. All proposals regarding force mergers were subsequently dropped nationwide, in July 2010, Raoul Moat targeted Northumbria Police officers after his release from Durham Prison. A manhunt was started by Northumbria Police with assistance from Durham Constabulary, Cleveland Police, Cumbria Police, West Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, and Humberside Police. As the situation developed over a period of days, more support was available with the Metropolitan Police sending 40 firearms officers. Also, the Police Service of Northern Ireland sent 20 armoured Mitsubishi Shoguns to help in the search on rough terrain in Northumberland, in April 2014, Northumbria Police came under controversy when they threatened teenagers with an ASBO for building a den out of sticks in the woods. In May 2016, details emerged of an affair between former Chief Constable Mike Craik and then Assistant Chief Constable Carolyn Peacock, peacocks husband - also then a serving police officer - found out about the affair at a barbecue, and attacked Craik. Officers from Northumbria Police were called to the incident, which was removed from all police logs on order of the Chief Constable. The legal bans were lifted, after the former Head of Legal sued the force for unfair dismissal, the number of police stations is in the process of being rationalised as part of significant ongoing budget reductions. Northumbria Police has numerous teams dedicated to neighbourhood policing attached to the commands as the table below outlines. A number of teams are now based within community hubs rather than traditional police stations. There are two inter-operable communication centres, Northern Communication Centre which deals with all stations and commands North of the Tyne, southern Communication Centre which deals with all stations and commands South of the Tyne, based at South Shields police station. The Police Memorial Trust lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty, and since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers
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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
16.
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
17.
North East Ambulance Service
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The trust was formed on 1 July 2006, following the merger of the existing North East Ambulance Service and the Tees division of the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Northumbria Ambulance Service and County Durham Ambulance Service had previously merged on 1 April 1999 and it is one of 10 Ambulance Trusts providing England with Emergency medical services, and is part of the National Health Service, receiving direct government funding for its role. There is no charge to patients for use of the service, the North East Ambulance Service also provides Patient Transport Services or non-emergency services to patients in the area. NEAS is one of four trusts in the country to receive a rating in the 2006/7 Healthcare Commission Healthcheck report. This is the highest rating achieved by any service for provision of care. On 23 August 2010, the North East Ambulance Service announced it was trialling a new service known as NHS111, the trials would mean that anyone living in the County Durham and Darlington area could dial 111 to access out of hours urgent care. The idea is for service to be rolled out nationally. The HQ is known as Bernicia House, control Centres There are now two control rooms currently operating for NEAS. Bernicia House, Russell House 999 emergency calls and NHS111 urgent care calls are answered by call takers at all two sites, the Patient Transport Service calls are answered by the call takers primarily HQ, Fleet Workshop The main fleet workshops is based at Pallion in Sunderland. However a secondary workshop is located in Stockton-On-Tees, training Centres The two main training centres for NEAS are based at Lanchester Road Hospital in Durham and at some fire stations in the area. Ambulance Divisions/Desks North East Ambulance Service are split into 3 divisions or dispatch desk areas at known in the control room, There is North which covers Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside. There is Central which covers South Shields, Gateshead, Sunderland, Houghton-le-spring, Washington and North Durham including Chester-Le-Street, Stanley, Consett, Ambulance Stations Below are all of the NEAS ambulance stations including the dispatch desk they would come under in the control room
18.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
19.
River Tyne
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The River Tyne /ˈtaɪn/ is a river in North East England and its length is 73 miles. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers, the North Tyne and the South Tyne and these two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed The Meeting of the Waters. The North Tyne rises on the Scottish border, north of Kielder Water and it flows through Kielder Forest, and passes through the village of Bellingham before reaching Hexham. The South Tyne rises on Alston Moor, Cumbria and flows through the towns of Haltwhistle and Haydon Bridge, hadrians Wall lies to the north of the Tyne Gap. Coincidentally the source of the South Tyne is very close to the sources of the two great rivers of the industrial north east namely the Tees and the Wear. The South Tyne Valley falls within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the second largest of the 40 AONBs in England, to the east of Gateshead and Newcastle, the Tyne divides Hebburn and Jarrow on the south bank from Walker and Wallsend on the north bank. Jarrow and Wallsend are linked underneath the river by the Tyne Tunnel, finally it flows between South Shields and Tynemouth into the North Sea. The Tyne Rivers Trust measure the whole Tyne catchment as 2,936 square kilometres, the River Tyne is believed to be around 30 million years old. The largest coal staithes were located at Dunston in Gateshead, Hebburn and Tyne Dock, the dramatic wooden staithes at Dunston, built in 1890, have been preserved, although they were partially destroyed by fire in 2006. And to this day in 2016 Tyne Dock, South Shields is still involved with coal, the tidal river is now managed by the Port of Tyne Authority. Nothing definite is known of the origin of the designation Tyne, nor is the known by that name until the Saxon period. There is a theory that Tīn was a word that meant river in the local Celtic language or in a language spoken in England before the Celts came, there is also a river Tyne that rises in Midlothian in Scotland and flows through East Lothian into the North Sea. The River Vedra on the Roman map of Britain may be the Tyne, the late Thomas John Taylor supposed that the main course of the river anciently flowed through what is now Team Valley, its outlet into the tidal river being by a waterfall at Bill Point. His theory is not far from the truth, as there is evidence that prior to the last Ice Age, Ice diverted the course of the Wear to its current location, flowing east the course of the Tyne) and joining the North Sea at Sunderland. Sculpted by David Wynne, the bronze figure incorporates flowing water into its design. The Environment Agency is currently working with architects and cultural consultancy xsite, in collaboration with Commissions North, the Tyne Salmon Trail will serve as a celebration of the river, its heritage and its increasingly diverse ecosystem. FINS, REFLECTION and JOURNEY were the first 3 cubes to be launched in December 2007 from a family of 10, each cube is inspired by the textures, changing colours, movement and journey of the salmon. With each offering a modern day keepsake to take away, in the form of a designed Bluetooth message, for three days, between 18–20 July 2008, a temporary bamboo artwork was installed over the Tyne close to the Gateshead Millennium Bridge
20.
Newcastle upon Tyne
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Newcastle is the most populous city in the North East and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is a member of the English Core Cities Group and is a member of the Eurocities network of European cities. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself, the regional nickname and dialect for people from Newcastle and the surrounding area is Geordie. Newcastle also houses Newcastle University, a member of the Russell Group, the city developed around the Roman settlement Pons Aelius and was named after the castle built in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conquerors eldest son. The city grew as an important centre for the trade in the 14th century. The port developed in the 16th century and, along with the lower down the River Tyne, was amongst the worlds largest shipbuilding and ship-repairing centres. Newcastles economy includes corporate headquarters, learning, digital technology, retail, tourism and cultural centres, among its icons are Newcastle United football club and the Tyne Bridge. Since 1981 the city has hosted the Great North Run, a marathon which attracts over 57,000 runners each year. The first recorded settlement in what is now Newcastle was Pons Aelius and it was given the family name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who founded it in the 2nd century AD. This rare honour suggests Hadrian may have visited the site and instituted the bridge on his tour of Britain, Pons Aelius population at this period was estimated at 2,000. Fragments of Hadrians Wall are visible in parts of Newcastle, particularly along the West Road, the course of the Roman Wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort in Wallsend—the walls end—and to the supply fort Arbeia in South Shields. After the Roman departure from Britain, completed in 410, Newcastle became part of the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, conflicts with the Danes in 876 left the river Tyne and its settlements in ruin. After the conflicts with the Danes, and following the 1088 rebellion against the Normans, Monkchester was all, because of its strategic position, Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, erected a wooden castle there in the year 1080. The town was known as Novum Castellum or New Castle. The wooden structure was replaced by a castle in 1087. The castle was again in 1172 during the reign of Henry II. Much of the keep which can be seen in the city dates from this period. Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was Englands northern fortress, incorporated first by Henry II, the city had a new charter granted by Elizabeth in 1589
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