Yorkshire and the Humber
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This article is about the region. For the European constituency, see Yorkshire and the Humber (European Parliament constituency).
Yorkshire and the Humber is one of the nine government office regions of England. It covers most of the historic county of Yorkshire, along with the part of northern Lincolnshire that was, from 1974 to 1996, within the former shire county of Humberside. It is one of the two regions (along with the North West) that were expected to have a referendum about the establishment of an elected regional assembly. The North East region of England rejected having an elected regional assembly in a referendum. The then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott subsequently announced that he would not move orders for other referendums before the relevant provisions expired in June, 2005. The Yorkshire and Humberside Assembly quango is in Wakefield. The highest point of the region is Whernside, in the Yorkshire Dales, at 737 metres. The largest freshwater lake is Hornsea Mere in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The population in 2005 was 5,142,400.
Population and key settlements
TransportThe central hubs of the area are Leeds and York, with the East Coast Main Line and Cross Country Route (Virgin Trains). The Midland Main Line finishes at Sheffield, with a less regular service to Leeds. East-west routes are the North TransPennine to Manchester, and South TransPennine through Doncaster. The M62 motorway is without doubt Yorkshire's main east-west thoroughfare, and north-south routes are the M1 and the A1, with only the A1 continuing further north. The nearest airports are Leeds Bradford International Airport, Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield near Doncaster and Humberside Airport near Brigg in North Lincolnshire. Hull has ferries to Zeebrugge and Rotterdam. Local governmentThe official region consists of the following subdivisions:
Key: shire county = † | metropolitan county = * Image:Flag of Yorkshire.jpg
The flag of Yorkshire.
It was originally called Yorkshire and Humberside, and defined as North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Humberside. Since then, Humberside has been abolished, and the councils of West and South Yorkshire abolished. The older form of the name is still occasionally seen. EconomyYorkshire in the past has been synonymous with mining. Many pits closed in the 1990s, with only a few in the Pontefract area left. The NUM was very Yorkshire-dominated. Coal still plays a part in the economy - there are three large power stations along the Aire Valley, with Drax being the second largest in Europe with 3945MW of capacity. Leeds is now a centre of financial services companies, with Direct Line and First Direct based there, as well as ASDA, Northern Foods, and the Green Flag roadside recovery firm (in Farsley). The Waddington board game company was founded in Leeds, as was the Burton tailoring company (the Burton Group became the Arcadia Group). Morrisons is based in Bradford, as well as Club 18-30 and the Grattan catalogue retailer. Nestlé in the UK are based in York, with operations in Halifax. The Halifax bank (former Building Society) is in Halifax. Sheffield is known for its steel industry, which has declined in recent years. Scunthorpe is where steel is smelted by Corus. Grimsby is home of (what is left of) Britain's fishing industry, and has many frozen food factories. There are two large oil refineries at Immingham, and a BP chemical works at Saltend in Hull. Smith & Nephew and Reckitt Benckiser medical and household products companies originated in Hull, and still have large factories there. There are many RAF bases in North Yorkshire, close to the A1. McCain is in Scarborough. EducationSchools are mostly comprehensive, with some grammar schools in North Yorkshire, Calderdale and Kirklees. The schools in Hull perform the worst in the UK at GCSE. Also at GCSE, schools in Barnsley, Bradford, Doncaster and North-East Lincolnshire have low-achieving results with Barnsley the worst of these. All four of these areas coincidentally have an above-average teenage pregnancy problem. For the metropolitan areas, Calderdale and Wakefield perform the best, although slightly under the UK average. North Yorkshire performs the best at GCSE in the region, and with the East Riding of Yorkshire and York have results above the UK average. At A-level Hull, North Lincolnshire, Kirklees and North Yorkshire perform quite well with Kirklees being the best by a large margin, and with Wakefield have results above the UK average. The excellent Kirklees result is due to Greenhead College in Huddersfield. The districts of South Yorkshire perform the least in the area at A level, and all of these districts achieve similar results, much lower than those in the former districts of Humberside. Hull and northern Lincolnshire have a wide socio-economic diversity - many under-achieving pupils at 16 but with high performers at A-level. Such areas are suited to selective education. Effectively in these two areas, selection is taking place - at 16. Top ten state schools in Yorkshire and the Humber (2006 A level results)
Local media/Entertainment
See alsoExternal links
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