North West England

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North West England is one of nine official

The official region consists of the following subdivisions:

After abolition of the Greater Manchester and Merseyside County Councils in 1986, power was transferred to the

Geographic features of the North West

Windermere, Lake District

Saddleworth, Peak District

Cheshire Plain

Morecambe Bay

North West England is bounded to the east by the

Windermere is the largest natural lake in England, while Broad Crag Tarn on Broad Crag is England's highest lake. Wast Water is England's deepest lake, being 74 metres deep.

A mix of rural and urban landscape, two large conurbations, centred on Liverpool and Manchester, occupy much of the south of the region. The north of the region, comprising Cumbria and northern Lancashire, is largely rural, as is the far south which encompasses parts of the Cheshire Plain and Peak District.

The region includes parts of three

Weather in this part of England is typically classified as maritime, moist and temperate, with a moderate annual temperature range. Average annual precipitation in the UK typically ranges from approximately 800 mm to 1,400 mm. Temperatures are generally close to the national average.[6] Cumbria usually experiences the most severe weather, with high precipitation in the mountainous regions of the Lake District and Pennines. In winter, the most severe weather occurs in the more exposed and elevated areas of the North West, once again mainly the Lake District and Pennine areas.^{[citation needed]}

Demographics

Population, density, and settlements

Source: Office for National Statistics Mid Year Population Estimates in 2008^[7]

North West England's population accounts for just over 13% of England's overall population. 37.86% of the North West's population resides in Greater Manchester, 21.39% in Lancashire, 20.30% in Merseyside, 14.76% in Cheshire and 7.41% live in the largest county by area, Cumbria.^{[citation needed]}

Ethnicity

According to 2009

• England – 6,169,753
• Scotland – 109,163
• Wales – 73,850
• Ireland – 56,887 (51,000 in 2008)
• Pakistan – 46,529 (58,000 in 2008)
• Poland – (37,000 in 2008)
• Northern Ireland – 34,879
• India – 34,600 (48,000 in 2008)
• Germany – 19,931 (25,000 in 2008)
• China and Hong Kong – 15,491
• Bangladesh – 13,746
• South Africa – 7,740
• United States – 7,037
• Jamaica – 6,661
• Italy – 6,325
• Australia – 5,880
• Eritrea & Ethiopia – 4,000

Religion

The table below is based on the

One in five of the population in the North West is

Of the nine regions of England, the North West has the fourth-highest GVA per capita—the highest outside southern England. Despite this the region has above average multiple deprivation with wealth heavily concentrated on very affluent areas like rural Cheshire, rural Lancashire, and south Cumbria. As measured by the Indices of deprivation 2007, the region has many more Lower Layer Super Output Areas in the 20% most deprived districts than the 20% least deprived council districts.^[24] Only North East England shows more indicators of deprivation than the North West, but the number of affluent areas in the North West is very similar to Yorkshire and the Humber.

The most deprived local authority areas in the region (based on specific wards within those borough areas) are, in descending order—Liverpool, Manchester, Knowsley, Blackpool, Salford, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Rochdale, Barrow-in-Furness, Halton, Hyndburn, Oldham, Pendle, St Helens, Preston, Bolton, Tameside, Wirral, Wigan, Copeland, Sefton, and Rossendale.

In 2007 when Cheshire still had district councils, the least deprived council districts in the region by council district, in descending order, were—Congleton, Ribble Valley, Macclesfield, and South Lakeland.^[25] These areas have Conservative MPs, except South Lakeland has a Lib Dem and Labour MPs. At county level, before it was split into two, Cheshire was the least deprived, followed by Trafford, and by Warrington and Stockport.

In March 2011, the overall

In the 2019 general election, the Conservatives gained ten seats, from the Labour Party, with no other seats changing hands. Labour held 42 of their 52 seats, albeit many with slimmed down majorities. They remain the dominant party in the region by seat count, with the Conservatives total now standing at 27. The Conservatives made two gains in Cheshire, three gains in Lancashire, five gains in Greater Manchester, notably including Andy Burnham's former seat of Leigh.

In the 2017 general election, the area was dominated by the Labour Party. Fifty-five per cent of the region's electorate voted Labour, 36.3% Conservative, 5.4% Liberal Democrat, 1.9% UKIP and 1.1% Greens; however, by number of parliamentary seats, Labour have 54, the Conservatives have 20, and the Liberal Democrats have 1. The Lib Dems' North West seat is in south Cumbria; Labour dominates Greater Manchester, and the Conservatives' vote is concentrated in affluent suburban areas such as Cheadle, Hazel Grove and Altrincham and Sale West. Labour seats also predominate in Merseyside. In Cheshire the 2015 result was reversed, with Labour winning seven seats and the Conservatives four, whilst Lancashire is competitive between Labour and Conservative (8 seats each); the Labour seats in Lancashire are concentrated in the south of the county along the M65. For the region, the Labour gained 3 seats; there was a 5.2% swing from Conservative to Labour.

In the 2015 general election, Liverpool Walton was the safest seat in the UK, with a 72% majority, and in 2017 this was repeated with a 77% majority for Dan Carden (Labour), when an astonishing 85.7% of the electorate voted for him (the Conservatives came second with 8.6%). In the by-election of 2012, Manchester Central has the record for the lowest turnout in the UK—18%. Gwyneth Dunwoody, for Crewe and Nantwich, was the longest serving female MP until her death in 2008.

In the final European Elections in the UK in 2019, 31.23% voted for the Brexit Party, with Labour polling 21.91%, the Liberal Democrats 17.15% and the Green Party 12.48%. The Conservatives came fifth in the region with 7.55% of votes cast.^[27]

Language and dialect

The earliest known language spoken in the North West was a dialect of the

English may have been spoken in the North West from around the 7th century AD, when the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria first appears to have made inroads west of the Pennines. The language at this time would have been the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. The high percentage of English place names in the region as a whole suggests English became almost ubiquitous over the coming centuries, particularly in the area south of the Lake District. Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Blackburn and Preston are among the region's many English place names. In the 9th to the 11th centuries, Danes from the east and Norsemen from Ireland and Scotland began settling in the area. The North West is really the only area of England where Norse settlement was significant and their influence remains in the place names and dialect of the region. Elements like fell, thwaite and tarn, which are particularly common in Cumbria, are all Norse. The numerous Kirkbys and place names with "holm" and "dale" show the Scandinavian influence throughout the North West.

Through the Middle Ages the dialects of the North West would have been considerably different from those spoken in the Midlands and south. It was only with the spread of literacy (particularly with the publication of the King James Bible) that Standard English spread to the region. Even so, local dialects continued to be used and were relatively widespread until the 19th and 20th centuries.

In modern times, English is the most spoken language in the North West, with a large percentage of the population fluent in it, and close to 100% conversational in it. To the north-east of the region, within the historic boundaries of Cumberland, the Cumbrian dialect is dominant. The historical county of Lancashire covered a vast amount of land, and the Lancashire dialect and accent is still predominant throughout the county, and stretches as far north as Furness in South Cumbria to parts of north Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the south of the region. The region boasts some of the most distinctive accents in the form of the Scouse accent, which originates from Liverpool and its surrounding areas, and the Manc accent, deriving from the central Manchester district. Both of these descend from the Lancashire dialect but have some distinctions from it, especially Scouse. The region's accents are among those referred to as 'Northern English'.

Large immigrant populations in the North West result in the presence of significant immigrant languages. South Asian languages such as

The most taught languages in schools across the North West are English, French and Spanish. German and Italian are available at more senior levels and, in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool, even Urdu and Mandarin are being taught to help maintain links between the local minority populations.^[citation needed]

Eurostat NUTS

In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), North West is a level-1 NUTS region, coded "UKD", which (since 2015) is subdivided as follows:^[28][29]

NUTS 1	Code	NUTS 2	Code	NUTS 3	Code
North West	UKD	Cumbria	UKD1	West Cumbria ( Copeland )	UKD11
				East Cumbria ( Eden, South Lakeland )	UKD12
		Cheshire	UKD6	Warrington	UKD61
				Cheshire East	UKD62
				Cheshire West and Chester	UKD63
		Greater Manchester	UKD3	Manchester	UKD33
				Greater Manchester South West (Salford and Trafford)	UKD34
				Greater Manchester South East (Stockport and Tameside)	UKD35
				Greater Manchester North West ( Wigan )	UKD36
				Greater Manchester North East ( Rochdale )	UKD37
		Lancashire	UKD4	Blackburn with Darwen	UKD41
				Blackpool	UKD42
				Lancaster and Wyre	UKD44
				Mid Lancashire (Fylde, Preston, Ribble Valley and South Ribble)	UKD45
				East Lancashire (Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale)	UKD46
				Chorley and West Lancashire	UKD47
		Merseyside	UKD7	East Merseyside ( Halton )	UKD71
				Liverpool	UKD72
				Sefton	UKD73
				Wirral	UKD74

Cities and towns

Population > 400,000

Manchester City Centre

Manchester, GM Liverpool, ME

Population > 100,000

Blackburn town centre and Blackpool promenade
Preston and Chester city centres

Warrington, CH Blackpool, LA Chester, CH Stockport, GM Sale, GM Bolton, GM Preston, LA

Rochdale, GM Blackburn, LA Wigan, GM St. Helens, ME Wythenshawe, GM Salford , GM

Population > 70,000

Barrow-in-Furness town centre and Birkenhead town hall

Oldham, GM Southport, ME Birkenhead, ME Bury, GM Bootle, ME

Carlisle , CU Northwich, CH Burnley, LA Barrow-in-Furness, CU Crewe, CH

Population > 50,000

Runcorn, CH Widnes, CH Wallasey, ME Ellesmere Port, CH

Altrincham, GM Macclesfield, CH Crosby, ME Leigh, GM

Population > 30,000

Accrington, LA Lancaster, LA Ashton-under-Lyne, GM Middleton, GM Lytham St Annes, LA Urmston, GM Kirkby, ME Skelmersdale, LA Eccles, GM Stretford, GM Denton, GM

Leyland, LA Chadderton, GM Morecambe, LA Chorley, LA Hyde, GM Huyton, ME Thornton-Cleveleys, LA Prestwich, GM Saddleworth, GM Winsford, CH Farnworth, GM

Population > 20,000

Radcliffe, GM Nelson, LA Ashton-in-Makerfield, GM Kendal, CU Heywood, GM Reddish, GM Darwen, LA Hindley, GM Cheadle Hulme, GM Fleetwood, LA Congleton, CH Swinton, GM Workington, CU South Turton, GM Westhoughton, GM Wilmslow, CH Ormskirk, LA Golborne, GM

Whitehaven, CU Stalybridge, GM Marple, GM Whitefield, GM Droylsden, GM Penwortham, LA Formby, ME Litherland, ME Newton-le-Willows, ME Atherton, GM Rawtenstall, LA Royton, GM Walkden, GM Shaw and Crompton, GM Failsworth, GM Maghull, ME Halewood, ME Horwich, GM

Population > 10,000

Alsager, CH Bramhall, GM Clitheroe, LA Colne, LA Dukinfield, GM Haslingden, LA Hazel Grove, GM Heysham, LA Irlam, GM Lowton, GM Maryport, CU Moreton, ME

Nantwich, CH Neston, CH Pendlebury, GM Penrith, CU Poulton-le-Fylde, LA Ramsbottom, GM Romiley, GM Sandbach, CH Tyldesley, GM Ulverston, CU Upton, ME Woodley, GM

Population > 5,000

Burscough, LA Carnforth, LA Cleator Moor, CU Cockermouth, CU Dalton-in-Furness, CU

Frodsham, CH Gatley, GM Millom, CU Tarleton, LA Windermere, CU

Metropolitan areas

See also:

List of metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom

The five largest metropolitan areas in the North West are as follows:

• Greater Manchester metropolitan area – 2,556,000^[30]
• Liverpool/Birkenhead metropolitan area – 2,241,000^[30]
• Blackburn/Burnley – 391,000^[30]
• Preston – 354,000^[30]
• Blackpool −304,000^[30]

Liverpool and Manchester are sometimes considered parts of a single large polynuclear metropolitan area,^[31][32][33] or megalopolis but are usually treated as separate metropolitan areas.^[30] In some studies, part of Wigan in Greater Manchester is considered part of the Liverpool metropolitan area.^[30]

Politics

The North West of England has historically been held by the Labour Party.

National politics

In the 2019 United Kingdom general election, the Labour Party won a plurality of seats in the North West.

Elected regional assembly

Peter Saville

It is one of the two regions (along with Yorkshire and the Humber) that were expected to hold a referendum on the establishment of an elected regional assembly. However, when the North East region of England rejected having an elected regional assembly in a referendum, further referendums were cancelled and the proposals for elected regional assemblies in England put on hold. The regional leaders' forum, 4NW is based on Waterside Drive in Wigan.

European Parliament

The former North West England European Parliament constituency had the same boundaries as the Region.

History

Main articles: History of Cumbria, History of Lancashire, History of Manchester, History of Liverpool, and History of Cheshire

Ten English regions were established by the government in 1994. At that time, Merseyside, which already had its own Government Office, formerly the Merseyside Task Force, was regarded as a separate region. In 1998, Merseyside was merged into the North West region. This action was controversial in some quarters.^[34] Regional Government Offices were abolished in April 2011 by the Coalition Government.

Scientific heritage

See also:

Science and engineering in Manchester and List of British innovations and discoveries

Sir

atomic theory. William Sturgeon of Lancashire invented the electromagnet

in 1825.

Sydney Chapman, a mathematician from Eccles, in 1930 explained the ozone–oxygen cycle in the stratosphere, being the first to propose that atmospheric oxygen or ozone molecules absorb (harmful UVB and UVC) ultraviolet wavelengths of light in photolysis, to produce reactive single atoms which accumulate to form the ozone layer.

Graphene was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004 under Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.

Spike Island

in Widnes

At the

atmospheres; the process was improved in 1935 by Michael Perrin

.

Halothane, the world's first synthetic inhalation general anaesthetic gas, was discovered in 1951 at ICI's Widnes Laboratory by Wallasey's Charles Suckling, and first tested on a patient in Manchester in 1956; it works by binding to the GABA receptor. John Charnley of Bury invented the hip replacement in 1962 at Wrightington Hospital, Lancashire, north-west of Wigan. Clatterbridge Hospital in Bebington has a cyclotron (linear accelerator), and is the only hospital in the UK to offer proton therapy.

Alderley Park opened in October 1957, and ICI Pharmaceuticals was formed in the same year. In 1962 Dora Richardson of ICI discovered tamoxifen. ICI Alderley Park later discovered Anastrozole, Fulvestrant, Goserelin and Bicalutamide, later made by Zeneca. James Black discovered beta blockers—propranolol (Inderal) at Alderley Park in 1962. The Wellcome Foundation, a provider of much of Britain's medical research, was based from 1966 to 1997 at Crewe Hall in Crewe Green.

Clifford Cocks and James H. Ellis from Cheshire, with Malcolm J. Williamson, invented the RSA (algorithm) in 1973 at GCHQ, used for public-key cryptography. Richard Owen from Lancaster coined the word dinosaur in 1842, and he founded the Natural History Museum, London, opening in 1881.

Industrial heritage

Rainhill Skew Bridge

in 1831

The

Stockton & Darlington Railway had opened in 1825. Chat Moss was a problem to constructing the railway, with Edge Hill Tunnel and Sankey Viaduct; the line was bitterly opposed by William Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton. The Bridgewater Canal was the first recognised canal of the modern era. Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater had visited France and noted their canals. John Gilbert had the innovative idea to use water pumped out of his coal mines to fill a canal from the Duke's Worsley mines to Manchester. It was designed by James Brindley

and built in 1761.

See also:

Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution

The

Bridgewater Foundry in Patricroft

(Salford), can claim to be the world's first factory with an assembly line type arrangement in 1836. Joseph Huddart of Cumbria was the first to mechanise the production of rope in 1793. The spinning jenny was invented in 1764 in Lancashire by James Hargreaves, a mechanical advance on the spinning wheel.

See also: History of computing hardware

The

Adabas database on an IBM 3270 at ICI in Northwich; it was developed by Robert Mais and it was around four years before (the more well-known) VisiCalc

in 1978. The University of Manchester has collected 25 Nobel prizes, though recent years have been less notable.

Garston was the last wooden match factory in the UK, closing in 1994 to become The Matchworks business centre off the A561 west of the former Speke airport. Cottonopolis was the industrial name for Manchester and the local area. Manchester at one time was the world's richest city. The CIS Tower, built by John Laing

in 1962, was Europe's tallest building, and Britain's tallest building until 1963, and Manchester's tallest building until 2006.

Kirkby was planned in the 1950s as the largest trading estate in Britain—1,800 acres. Trafford Park is the world's first planned industrial estate. Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers opened their first co-operative outlet on 21 December 1844.

rail track

in the world.

See also: War of the currents and Mains electricity

Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, born in Liverpool in 1864, was an electrical engineer who designed the layout for Deptford Power Station, the first alternating current power station in the world in 1887, and whose design all others would follow; his later company Ferranti, of Oldham, would later be an industry leader in Britain's defence electronics, on the FTSE 100 Index. Ferranti's design of increasing AC voltage to high tension at the power station, to be stepped-down at a transformer at substations before entering properties, is the system all electricity networks take today; the system reduces wasteful heating of electricity transmission cables.

The

No. 1 Parachute Training School RAF—the main parachute training site for the war—was at RAF Ringway (the Central Landing Establishment and Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment) now Manchester Airport; many aircraft were built there too, and the Ford Trafford Park Factory built 34,000 aircraft engines—mostly Merlin engines

; the nearby Metropolitan-Vickers factory built many Lancasters.

See also:

Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom

Calder Hall was the world's first nuclear power station in 1956. There are approximately 430 nuclear power stations around the world, and the UK is the third most experienced operator of nuclear reactors after the US and France, and is the world's ninth largest producer of nuclear-generated electricity, with nine stations operating in the UK producing around 10GW. New-build nuclear power stations will either be the AP1000 (Toshiba Westinghouse NuGeneration) or EPR design (developed by Areva). BNFL bought Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Company in 1999; it was sold in October 2006 for £5.4 billion to Toshiba. British Energy was sold in 2009 for £12.5 billion to EDF; Centrica (British Gas) had also wanted to buy it; 26 Magnox reactors were built in the UK, followed by 14 AGR reactors.

Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952, Britain's first nuclear bomb, detonated on HMS Plym on the Montebello Islands in the state of Western Australia, was made of plutonium-239 mostly made at Windscale (which began production in 1950), with some possibly from Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada (where the Tube Alloys project was later moved).

W. T. Glover & Co. of Salford were important electricity cable manufacturers throughout the early 20th century. BAE Systems Wind Tunnel Department at Warton—one of its four wind tunnels—the High Speed Wind Tunnel—can test speeds intermittently up to Mach 3.8 (trisonic)—the second fastest in the UK, to the University of Manchester's Aero-Physics Laboratory which has a hypersonic wind tunnel up to Mach 6. Osborne Reynolds of Owens College (which became the Victoria University of Manchester in 1904), known worldwide for his Reynolds number (introduced elsewhere by the mathematician George Gabriel Stokes), showed in the early 1880s that wind tunnels (invented by Francis Herbert Wenham in 1871) could model large-scale objects accurately. BAE Systems Regional Aircraft assembled Britain's last airliner, the British Aerospace 146 (Avro RJX), at Woodford in November 2001. The Merlin-powered Avro Tudor G-AGPF, which took off from what is now Manchester Airport on 14 June 1945, was Britain's first pressurised civilian aircraft; only 38 were built and it was designed for the North Atlantic route. On 13 May 1949, VN799 the English Electric Canberra first flew from Warton: Warton at the time was a former USAAF wartime maintenance base; the German Arado Ar 234 was technically the world's first jet bomber; the Canberra would be the first jet aircraft to make a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic on 21 February 1951.

Robert Whitehead of Bolton invented the modern-day torpedo in 1866. Sir William Pickles Hartley of Lancashire founded Hartley's Jam in 1871, building a purpose-built village at Aintree. Sir Henry Tate also came from Lancashire, joining Abram Lyle in 1921, of whose Golden syrup tins are claimed to be Britain's oldest brand; he established the Tate Gallery in 1897. Robert Hope-Jones of the Wirral invented the Wurlitzer organ. The Christys' & Co factory in Stockport was the largest hat-making factory in the world in the nineteenth century; it became part of Associated British Hat Manufacturers and is now in Oxfordshire. The company owner's son founded Christy in 1850 in Droylsden (now in Tameside), which invented the industrially produced towel.

Britain's most popular car, the

Valencia

in Spain.

MUSTARD re-usable spacecraft in 1964, which although not built had given NASA

a concept.

Culture

The Suffragette movement came from Manchester—the Women's Social and Political Union. Arthur Wynne, born in Liverpool, invented the crossword in December 1913. On 13 August 1964, Britain carried out its last two executions at Strangeways and Walton Prison. Under the Museums Act 1845, the UK's second and third public municipal libraries were at Warrington in 1848 and at Salford Museum and Art Gallery in 1850; Canterbury had been first in 1847. The first Trades Union Congress was held in 1868 at the Mechanics' Institute, Manchester. The World Pie Eating Championship is held in Wigan each year.

Ann Lee from Manchester started the USA Shakers movement, founded out of the Quakers, which itself has strong links to Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Joseph Livesey of Preston was the founder of Britain's temperance movement, and the word teetotal was first coined in Preston in 1833. The crumbly Cheshire cheese is thought to be the oldest in Britain. Heaton Park in north Manchester is the largest municipal park in Europe. Jelly Babies were invented in Lancaster in 1864, at Fryers of Lancashire. The first KFC outlet in the UK was on Fishergate in Preston in May 1965, opened by the entrepreneur Ray Allen. Oldham claims to be the site of the first fried potatoes in the UK in 1860. The UK's biggest dance music festival takes place on the August Bank Holiday at Creamfields on Daresbury Estate. Ingvar Kamprad's IKEA opened its first UK store in Warrington on 1 October 1987; the UK was the 20th country at the time that IKEA had been established. The International Cheese Awards are held at the end of July in Nantwich.

Liverpool and Manchester, the two largest cities in the North West by population, are known for being the birthplace of beat music (also called "Merseybeat") during the 1960s to 1970s, and the development of the Madchester music scene from the 1980s, and 1990s respectively.

A Taste of Honey was an influential 1960s film set in Salford, depicting working class poverty in ways not previously seen at the cinema, known as kitchen sink realism; Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole, a 1930s book also set in Salford, was thought by the BBFC to be too sordid a depiction of poverty to be made into a film; Mike Leigh, from Salford, has produced films on a similar subject.

Transport

Wirral peninsula

Transport policy

As part of the national transport planning system, the

Highways Agency and Network Rail.^[35] Within the region, the local transport authorities plan for the future by producing Local Transport Plans (LTPs) which outline their strategies, policies and implementation programmes.^[36] The most recent LTP is that for the period 2006–11. In the North West region, the following transport authorities have published their LTP online: Blackburn with Darwen U.A,^[37] Blackpool U.A.,^[38] Cheshire,^[39] Cumbria,^[40] Greater Manchester,^[41] Halton U.A.,^[42] Lancashire,^[43] Merseyside^[44] and Warrington U.A.^[45] Since 1 April 2009, when the county of Cheshire was split into two unitary councils^[46]

the Cheshire transport authority ceased to exist, however it is the most recent LTP for the area.

Road

Regionwide

Regionwide, the principal road link is the

English Midlands, near Crewe in the south. It connects such towns and cities as Penrith, Kendal, Lancaster, Preston, Warrington, Liverpool and Manchester. The M6 intersects many of the North West's motorways and A-roads, carrying almost 120,000 vehicles per day (41,975,000 per year).^[47]

Britain's most severe steep road is Hardknott Pass in Cumbria and the highest road in the UK is the former A6293 at 2,780 ft at Milburn, Cumbria; the highest classified road in England was the A689 east of Nenthead in Cumbria on the Durham boundary.

Greater Manchester and Merseyside

Further information: Transport in Liverpool and Transport in Manchester

The Greater Manchester and Merseyside areas are home to almost 4 million people; over half of the region's population. The road networks intertwining these metropolitan areas are extremely important to the economy and are largely motorway, including the M62 which crosses the entire country (east to west, Hull to Liverpool); this motorway directly connects the cities of Manchester and Liverpool, carrying 78,000 vehicles in the North West per day.^[48]

The Merseyside-Manchester region has many other motorways that serve many millions on a daily basis: the M61 connects Manchester to Preston; the M56 runs south of Manchester to Cheshire and Wales; the M57 and M58 motorways run north of Liverpool and connect towns such as St. Helens and Wigan; the M60 is Manchester's ring road; and the M67 and M66 motorways run east and north respectively, both of these roads are under 10 mi (16 km) and link Manchester to smaller outlying settlements. On top of this there are countless numbers of A-roads, B-roads and minor roads which circle, entwine and serve these two major metropolises.

Cumbria

In Cumbria the M6 runs all the way down the east of the county connecting the very north of England to the Lancashire border. The A590 links Barrow-in-Furness to Kendal with around 14,000 vehicles per day.^[49] The A595 runs all the way along the West Cumbrian coast beginning near Barrow and ending in Carlisle, linking towns such as Whitehaven and Workington. The A591 road runs from Kendal to the centre of the county connecting Lake District settlements like Windermere, Ambleside and Keswick. Other important A-roads include the A5092, A66, A596 and formerly the A74, until this was upgraded to motorway standard as an extension of the M6 between 2006 and 2008 to meet the A74(M) at the Scottish border.

Lancashire

The Lancashire economy relies strongly on the M6, which also runs from north to south (Lancaster to

A59, A582, A583, A584 and, to the very south-east, the M61 motorway. To the east of the county are the A59, A6119, A677, A679, A666, A680, A56, A646 and A682. The M66 begins 500 m (0.3 mi) inside the county border near Edenfield

, providing an important link between east Lancashire and Manchester.

Cheshire

In Cheshire, there are four motorways: the M6, the M56 (linking Chester to the east), the M53 (linking Chester to Birkenhead) and the M62, which runs just along the county's northern border with Merseyside and Greater Manchester. The Cheshire road system is made up of 3,417 mi (5,499 km) of highway and the principal road (M6) carries 140,000^[50] vehicles in the county daily, linking the North West to the West Midlands.

The county town of Chester is served by the

A34

, A523 and A566 roads.

Air

The biggest

Thomson Airways; it was previously served by Thomas Cook Airlines and Monarch Airlines

.

The region's second largest airport, but is the oldest and fastest growing, is Liverpool John Lennon Airport, which serves over 5 million passengers annually. The airport serves destinations primarily in the UK and Europe and is a major hub for EasyJet and Ryanair.

The only other significant passenger airport in the region was Blackpool Airport, which was refurbished in 2006 and handled around half a million passengers annually. Destinations ranged from the Canary Islands in Spain to the Republic of Ireland. Commercial flights ended there in March 2017.

Cumbria

• Barrow/Walney Island Airport – Operated by BAE Systems Submarines, private use
• Stobart Group
  , public use

Greater Manchester

• City Airport Manchester
  – Operated by City Airport Manchester Ltd, public use
• Manchester Airport Group
  , destinations worldwide
• Woodford Aerodrome – Operated by BAE Systems Regional Aircraft, now closed

Lancashire

• Blackpool Airport – Operated by Balfour Beatty, public use (commercial flights withdrawn)
• Warton Aerodrome – Operated by BAE Systems, private use

Merseyside

• Liverpool John Lennon Airport – International airport operated by Liverpool Airport plc, destinations worldwide
• RAF Woodvale – Operated by the Royal Air Force, military use
• Southport Birkdale Sands airstrip – Sand runway located on Southport beach (infrequent use, subject to prior permission)

Rail

Further information: Blackpool Tramway, Manchester Metrolink, and Merseyrail

The main connection by train is the

Caldervale Line to Blackpool. Liverpool and Manchester both have extensive local passenger rail networks operating high-frequency commuter trains. The quietest railway station in the region, by usage, is Reddish South

, the 4th quietest in Britain.

The InterCity branded service in the UK began between London and Manchester in the mid-1960s; the new Euston station opened in 1968. With the new electrification of the line in the late 1960s, passenger numbers doubled.

The region saw the last steam-train service on the UK network – the Fifteen Guinea Special on 11 August 1968, with three Black Five locomotives.

Water

Further information: Port of Liverpool, Liverpool Cruise Terminal, Manchester Ship Canal, Mersey Ferry, and Heysham Port

• 
  Mersey Ferry Royal Daffodil
• 
  Liverpool Cruise Terminal
• 
  Leeds and Liverpool Canal
• 
  Isle of Man Steam Packet
• 
  Isle of Man Steam Packet route map
• 
  Manchester Ship Canal
• 
  MS Norbay operates Liverpool to Dublin

Sea ferries depart from the following ports:

Isle of Man Steam Packet); Birkenhead (Twelve Quays Terminal) to Belfast and Dublin (Norfolkline Irish Sea Ferries – former Norse Merchant Ferries); Fleetwood to Larne (Stena Line) in Northern Ireland; and Heysham Port

to Douglas (Isle of Man Steam Packet).

The world's first hovercraft service took place on 20 July 1962, from Leasowe (Moreton) to Rhyl, operated by British United Airways in a Vickers-Armstrongs VA-3, powered by two turboprop engines.

Leeds and Liverpool Canal has run into Liverpool city centre, via Liverpool Canal Link at Pier Head, since 2009.

MS Magellan all use the terminal to depart to Iceland, France, Spain and Norway

.

Economy

The North West is historically linked with the textiles industry, mainly before the mid 20th century. The Greater Manchester region produces the most economic output according to GVA in 2014 with £57,395m, followed by Merseyside £28,257m, Lancashire with £27,668m, Cheshire £25,803m and Cumbria with £10,747m.

According to research by Cushman & Wakefield in 2008, Manchester is the second best city to locate a business in the UK whilst Liverpool is the eleventh best city.^[52] The Financial Times stated that the North West economy, led by the redevelopment of Manchester and Liverpool, is a genuine rival to "overheated London".^[53]

The area's electricity, formerly looked after by

MANWEB and NORWEB, is now looked after by ScottishPower Energy Networks and United Utilities respectively. The Morecambe Bay gas field

provides 6% of the UK's natural gas.

Cheshire

Main article: Economy of Cheshire

See also: Cheshire § Economy and industry

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Stanlow Refinery, the UK's second largest refinery after Fawley, looking north-east from Wervin

Opel Rüsselsheim

Cheshire is linked with the

CF Fertilisers

UK (former Shellstar) who make the Nitram brand of fertiliser.

salt mine at Meadowbank run by Salt Union, who are owned by Compass Minerals

.

A534 in central Crewe near the Virgin Trains training academy. UK Fuels (fuel cards

) are off the A532, north of Crewe railway station.

Royal Mail stamps

, and has done for many years.

A557 at junction 12 of the M56 next to the Weaver Navigation and the 3,200 ft Weaver Viaduct south of Runcorn towards Sutton Weaver. Croda Enterprise Technology Group does its important R&D in Halebank, Widnes, south of Ditton. The Thermphos

factory on the A557 south of Widnes closed in 2013.

Krauss-Maffei UK (injection moulding machines); AlphaBiolabs provide the DNA paternity testing for The Jeremy Kyle Show on Carina Park in Westbrook.^[54]

Soletanche Freyssinet). Betfred (having the largest turnover in the region—£13.3bn) is at the western end of Birchwood itself, next to the M6 and Birchwood railway station. Birchwood was built on the former ROF Risley

.

Lancashire

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Main article: Lancashire § Economy

The

N Brown Group (JD Williams) is one of Britain's main clothing manufacturers and retailers, and based in central Manchester near the A62/A665 junction and Sir Owen William's Daily Express Building, and owns well-known brands. Gazprom Energy is on Quay Street (A34) towards the River Irwell.

JD Sports is west of the Pilsworth Interchange of the M66 in Unsworth south of Bury; Birthdays is west of the Heap Bridge Interchange; Tetrosyl Group Ltd, UK maker of car care products are at Walmersley, off the A56 and also at junction 2 (A58) of the M66. At A6053/A56 junction in Redvales, to the south of Bury is Melba Swintex, a main supplier of street furniture—traffic cones and barriers, claiming to be a world leader. Milliken make airbags on the A58, south-west of Bury.

PTG (Holroyd Machine Tools) are based off the M62

The British Cattle Movement Service is at Workington next to Tata Steel Projects, near a site of the National Nuclear Laboratory on Derwent Howe Ind Est. Iggesund Paperboard is south of Workington, off the A596; next door is Eastman Chemical. Amcor Flexibles Cumbria (former Alcan before 2009) in the south of Workington prints crisp packets and confectionery wrappers, for distribution around the UK's factories.

The

Secondary education

Secondary schools are mostly comprehensive, but Trafford retains a wholly selective school system, and there are some other grammar schools in Lancashire, Wirral, Liverpool and Cumbria.

There are around 345,000 at secondary school in the region, the third highest in England, after South East England and Greater London. This is around three times as much as there are in North East England. For school truancy the most persistent truants are in Manchester with a rate of 7.3%, followed by Knowsley with 6.9%, and Blackpool with 6.6%. The lowest truancy rate is in South Ribble with 2.4% followed by Ribble Valley with 2.9% (both in Lancashire).

At A level in 2010, Trafford performed the best and, again like its results at GCSE, is one of the best areas in England. The lowest performing area is, again, Knowsley but followed by Rochdale. Knowsley has had some dreadful results at A-level; Halewood Academy, its last school sixth-form, closed in 2016; there is now no school-based A-level provision in Knowsley, it is provided by the Knowsley Community College. For traditional counties, Lancashire gets excellent results at A-level, being one of the best in England. Areas also performing above the England average, in order of results, are Blackpool, Warrington, Wigan, Cheshire West and Chester, Bury, Cumbria, Wirral, and Stockport. Blackpool performs not particularly well at GCSE, yet produces much better results at A level—even better than Cheshire West and Chester, and the third-best in the region.^{[citation needed]}

Top ten state schools in the North West (2015 A level results)

1. Altrincham Grammar School for Girls (1223)
2. Altrincham Grammar School for Boys
3. The Blue Coat School, Liverpool
4. Lancaster Girls' Grammar School
5. The Blue Coat CofE School, Oldham
6. Wirral Grammar School for Girls
7. Wirral Grammar School for Boys
8. Loreto Grammar School, Altrincham
9. West Kirby Grammar School
10. Clitheroe Royal Grammar School^{[citation needed]}

The areas that have school children most likely to attend university are Trafford and Cheshire, followed by Wirral, Sefton, Stockport and Bury. Four of these areas are or were part of Cheshire.^{[citation needed]}

Colleges

• Aquinas College, Stockport
• Ashton Sixth Form College, Ashton-under-Lyne
• Barrow-in-Furness Sixth Form College
  , Barrow-in-Furness
• Blackburn College
  , Blackburn
• Blackpool and The Fylde College, Blackpool
• Blackpool Sixth Form College, Blackpool
• Bolton College, Bolton
• Bolton Sixth Form College
  , Bolton
• Burnley College, Burnley
• Bury College, Bury
• Carlisle College, Carlisle
• Carmel College, St Helens
• Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College, Cheadle
• Furness College, Barrow-in-Furness
• Hazel Grove High School Sixth Form, Stockport
• Holy Cross College (UK), Bury
• Hopwood Hall College, Rochdale
• Hugh Baird College, Bootle
• Kendal College, Kendal
• King George V College, Southport
• Lancaster and Morecambe College, Lancaster
• Liverpool Community College
  , Liverpool
• Loreto College, Manchester
• Macclesfield College, Macclesfield
• The Manchester College, Manchester
• Mid Cheshire College, Northwich
• The Oldham College
  , Oldham
• Oldham Sixth Form College, Oldham
• Preston College, Preston
• Priestley College, Warrington
• Rainford College
  , St Helens
• Riverside College, Widnes
• Runshaw College, Leyland
• Salford City College, Salford
• South Cheshire College, Crewe
• Southport College, Southport
• Sir John Deane's College, Northwich
• Stockport College, Stockport
• St Helens College, St Helens
• St John Rigby College
  , Wigan
• St. Mary's College
  , Blackburn
• St. Wilfrids C of E Sixth Form College, Blackburn
• Thomas Whitham Sixth Form, Burnley
• Trafford College, Trafford
• West Cheshire College, Ellesmere Port
• Wigan and Leigh College, Wigan
• Winstanley College, Wigan
• Xaverian College, Manchester

The two main higher education colleges in the region are

The universities in the North West are listed below:

• University of Manchester, Manchester – The largest single-site university in the UK with 36,907 students
• Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester – Also one of the country's largest universities with 40,420 students – second-largest university in the region
• UCLAN, Preston – The University of Central Lancashire in Preston, 28,850 students – third-largest university in the region
• Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool – 24,085 students
• University of Liverpool, Liverpool – 20,765 students
• University of Salford, Salford – 20,185 students
• Lancaster University, Lancaster – 17,415 students
• The University of Law
  , Chester, Manchester
• Edge Hill University, Ormskirk – 15,645 students
• University of Chester, Chester and Warrington – 15,095 students
• University of Bolton, Bolton – 8,540 students
• Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool – 8,205 students
• University of Cumbria – The region's newest university located across Cumbria, parts of Lancashire and London, and formerly known as the Cumbria Institute of the Arts

Over 60% of university students in the region are native to the region. The region with the next-highest number of students in the North-West is Yorkshire and the Humber, so approximately 80% of university students in the area are from the north of England. The region's students have the highest proportion of students from so-called low-participation neighbourhoods.^{[citation needed]}

Local media

TV

• Local Television Limited
  and is required to broadcast 35 hours a week of first-run local programming.
• That's Manchester is a local television station serving Greater Manchester. It is owned and operated by That's TV and broadcasts on Freeview channel 7 from studios at The Flint Glass Works in the Ancoats suburb of Manchester.
• Regional news programmes for the Isle of Man, North West England and south of Cumbria – North West Tonight (BBC North West) and Granada Reports (ITV Granada), both based in Salford Quays since Autumn 2011 and Spring 2013 respectively.
• Regional news programmes for the north of Cumbria – Look North (BBC North East and Cumbria) based in Newcastle and Lookaround (ITV Tyne Tees & Border) based in Gateshead.
• Regional news programmes for the
  Emley Moor
  transmitter group.
  • N.B. Digital TV comes from Winter Hill for the south of the region, and Caldbeck for Cumbria. Digital switchover took place in mid-2009 for Cumbria and late-2009 for the south of the region.

Radio

• BBC Local Radio services for the region include BBC Radios Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria and Stoke (covering south of Cheshire).
• National radio comes from Holme Moss (for Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Cheshire) and Sandale for Cumbria. There is a main MW transmitter for the region (and England), over the border in Kirklees, at Moorside Edge.
• Commercial radio stations include:
  • The Bay
    .
  • The
    Radio City (Liverpool), with the Castlefield studios also providing the majority of programmes for Hits Radio UK
    .
  • Capital North West and North Wales
    .
  • Smooth North West (regional service) and Smooth Lake District (Kendal)
  • St John's Beacon
    , Liverpool.
  • XS Manchester
  • Chester's Dee Radio (Chester) and sibling Cheshire's Silk 106.9
    (Macclesfield)

The UK's Time signal comes from Anthorn Radio Station on the north-west Cumbrian coast, where there are three atomic clocks.

Newspapers

• Blackpool Gazette, Blackpool
• Bolton News, Bolton
• Bury Times, Bury
• Chester Evening Leader
  , Chester
• Lancashire Evening Post, Preston
• Lancashire Telegraph, Blackburn
• Liverpool Echo, Liverpool
• Manchester Evening News, Manchester
• News and Star, Carlisle
• North-West Evening Mail
  , Barrow-in-Furness
• Oldham Evening Chronicle, Oldham
• Southport Visiter, Southport
• The Reporter,^[68] St Helens
• The Star,^[69] St Helens
• Westmorland Gazette
  , Kendal
• Wigan Evening Post
  , Wigan

Guardian Media Group have a printing site at Trafford Park Printers off the A5081 (M60 junction 9) between the Bridgewater Canal and the

Prinovis in Liverpool (Speke) prints OK!, the Sun on Sunday magazine (Fabulous), and the Sunday Times magazine.

Town and city twinnings

Sport

The modern

The following rugby league clubs are based in the North West, and compete in the Super League or the Championships (the top three division of the British rugby league system) as of 2021.

Super League teams

• Leigh Centurions
  (Leigh, Greater Manchester)
• Salford City Reds (Salford, Greater Manchester)
• St. Helens (St Helens, Mersyside)
• Warrington Wolves (Warrington, Cheshire)
• Wigan Warriors (Wigan, Greater Manchester)

Championship teams

• Swinton Lions (Swinton, Greater Manchester)
• Oldham Roughyeds
  (Oldham, Greater Manchester)
• Whitehaven (Whitehaven, Cumbria)
• Widnes Vikings (Widnes, Cheshire)

League 1 teams

• Barrow Raiders (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria)
• Rochdale Hornets (Rochdale, Greater Manchester)
• Workington Town (Workington, Cumbria)

Swimming

Royal Birkdale Golf Club is at Southport and there is the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club. Royal Liverpool Golf Club is at Hoylake.

See also

• Cumbric language
• Envirolink Northwest
• List of schools in the North West of England
• Northwest Development Agency
• Outline of England
• Manpool

References