Forget where you thought the North started because you're probably wrong.
New research has found that the North now officially starts in Leicestershire, of all bloody places.
Nobody was ever really certain what divided the North and the South, other than accents, food, music, friendliness, etc. Certain folks would argue over whether cities such as Nottingham, Derby and Stoke could truly consider themselves Northern.
It's a debate that has raged on for years but Chris Lloyd thinks he's cracked it.
https://twitter.com/JOE_co_uk/status/908445510423457792
Lloyd, Professor of Quantitative Geography at the University of Liverpool, who led the research, claims that the UK’s population centre has moved from Upper Midway in Derbyshire to Snarestone in Leicestershire, with the reason being people's pursuit of better employment opportunities.
"Our study of population changes in Britain finds that the population centre for each Census has moved steadily further south from Upper Midway in Derbyshire to Snarestone in Leicestershire, as the population of the country has shifted towards the South East," Lloyd said, via the
Yorkshire Post.
"This reflects a north-south divide in population growth, with more rapid growth in London and the south east of England than elsewhere.
"However, we also discovered that many heavily populated urban areas that had experienced very large population decreases during the 1970s have largely recovered, particularly since 2001, and are now back at, or exceed, the levels they were at in 1971.
"This urban growth links to opportunities, such as in employment, but also to challenges such as increasing overcrowding seen in outer London and other urban areas."
