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The 'East of England' is one of the nine official regions of England. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Its population as of the 2001 census was 5,388,140. The area is mostly low-lying, and the highest point is an unnamed point near the hill of Ivinghoe Beacon, near Tring, reaching 817 feet. Peterborough, Luton and Thurrock are the region's most populous urban areas.

Contents

Historical use

Common use

Local government

Regional assembly

Economy

Hertfordshire

Bedfordshire

East Anglia

Education

Top twenty state schools in the East of England (2006 A level results)

Local media

See also

External links

Historical use

Before the creation of the East of England region there had been a smaller standard statistical region of East Anglia which did not include Essex, Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire. They had previously been included in the South East region. The East of England civil defence region shared the boundaries of the current region.

Common use

In common usage the easterly parts of this area, have long been and, continue to be known as East Anglia. The areas closer to London are more commonly called part of the South East with Hertfordshire and Essex included in the "Home Counties".

Local government

The official region consists of the following subdivisions:

Map	Ceremonial county	Shire county / unitary	Districts
EnglandEastNumbered.png	Essex	1. Thurrock
		2. Southend-on-Sea
		3. Essex	Harlow, Epping Forest, Brentwood, Basildon, Castle Point, Rochford, Maldon, Chelmsford, Uttlesford, Braintree, Colchester,Tendring, Chelmsford
	4. Hertfordshire		Three Rivers, Watford, Hertsmere, Welwyn Hatfield, Broxbourne, East Hertfordshire, Stevenage, North Hertfordshire, St Albans, Dacorum
	Bedfordshire	5. Luton
		6. Bedfordshire	Bedford, Mid Bedfordshire, South Bedfordshire
	Cambridgeshire	7. Cambridgeshire	Cambridge, South Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Fenland, East Cambridgeshire
		8. Peterborough
	9. Norfolk		Norwich, South Norfolk, Great Yarmouth, Broadland, North Norfolk, King's Lynn and West Norfolk, Breckland
	10. Suffolk		Ipswich, Suffolk Coastal, Waveney, Mid Suffolk, Babergh, St Edmundsbury, Forest Heath

Regional assembly

An East of England Regional Assembly exists to co-ordinate the work of the local councils in the area and provides other functions. It is based in Flempton on the A1101 north-west of Bury St Edmunds.

Economy

Hertfordshire

The Greater Watford area is home to Camelot Group owners of the National Lottery, the UK headquarters of international firms Total Oil, and Skanska construction, retailers TK Maxx and Costco, Leavesden Film Studios, Sanyo, Kenwood and Beko electronic goods manufacturers, Wetherspoons pub chains, the European HQ of the Hilton hotel group and Nestle Waters. In Elstree and Borehamwood in Hertfordshire (close to the A1 motorway), are the Elstree Studios where the films were made and more recently Big Brother. Borehamwood is also home to BBC Elstree The Boy's Brigade and DSG International (owners of Currys and PC World), and 3Com, Steria (formerly Bull and Honeywell), and Kodak have their UK bases in Hemel Hempstead. Tesco are based in Cheshunt. In Welwyn Garden City are the headquarters of the Thresher Group and the UK headquarters of Xerox and Hoffmann–La Roche. Shredded Wheat and Shreddies in the town by Nestlé, at least until 2008. Computacenter is based in Hatfield.

Bedfordshire

Moto Hospitality have their headquarters are Toddington in Bedfordshire (at the service station). Luton is home to easyJet and InBev while its neighbour in Dunstable is home to Whitbread.

East Anglia

The economy in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk is traditionally mostly agricultural. Nationally known companies include Bernard Matthews and Norwich Union in Norwich, Greene King in Bury St Edmunds, In Newmarket is the base of the UK horse racing industry. The main water company for the area, AWG plc is based in Huntingdon. Around Cambridge on numerous science parks, are high technology companies which form the so-called Silicon Fen. Cambridgeshire has a few RAF bases. The USAF still have bases in Suffolk.

Education

Essex and Southend on Sea LEAs have selective schools. The others do not. Nine out of the top ten schools in the region (by A level results) are either in Essex or Southend on Sea. However, at GCSE, the best performing LEA is Hertfordshire, followed by Cambridgeshire and Southend on Sea. Suffolk also performs better than the England average of 45.8% attaining 5 grades A-C including Maths and English. In general, the region performs well at GCSE, with only Luton being low performing. Thurrock and Peterborough are next lowest, but are not underperforming areas. At A level, the best performing area is Southend on Sea, followed by Cambridgeshire and Essex. No other areas are above the England average. Thurrock is the least performing, followed closely by Luton. At A level, Norfolk does not perform well for a rural county.
Cambridge has an eponymous very well known university as well as a second much less well known one. There are also other towns and cities in the region which have universities including Norwich (UEA) and Hatfield (University of Hertfordshire).

Top twenty state schools in the East of England (2006 A level results)

★ 1. Colchester Royal Grammar School (1257)

★ 2. King Edward VI Grammar School (Chelmsford)

★ 3. Chelmsford County High School

★ 4. Colchester County High School

★ 5. Southend High School for Girls

★ 6. Westcliff High School for Boys

★ 7. Wymondham High School

★ 8. Southend High School for Boys

★ 9. Westcliff High School for Girls

★ 10. Hockerill Anglo-European College

★ 11. Sir John Lawes School

★ 12. Hills Road Sixth Form College

★ 13. St Alban's Catholic High School

★ 14. Farlingaye High School

★ 15. St Martin's School

★ 16. The Broxbourne School

★ 17. The King's School, Peterborough

★ 18. St Benedict's Catholic School

★ 19. Loreto College, St Albans

★ 20. Roundwood Park School (920)

Local media

★ The BBC East region is based in Norwich, where the Look East regional programme is based. The BBC East region also includes Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire. Anglia Television is also based in Norwich, which has the Anglia Tonight regional programme.

★ BBC radios Norfolk, Suffolk, Three Counties, Cambridgeshire and Essex.

★ Commercial radio stations include Kiss 105-108, Q103 Cambridge, The Beach (Lowestoft), SGR-FM (Ipswich), 96.9 Chiltern FM (Bedford), 97.6 Chiltern FM (Luton), Mercury 96.6 (St. Albans), Radio Broadland, 99.9 Radio Norwich, North Norfolk Radio, KL.FM 96.7 (Kings Lynn), Hereward FM (Peterborough), Lite FM 106.8 (Peterborough), SGR Colchester, Ten 17 (Harlow), and Essex FM (Chelmsford).

★ Local newspapers are the Norwich Evening News, Cambridge Evening News, Evening Gazette (Essex), Evening Star (Ipswich), Eastern Daily Press, and East Anglian Daily Times.

See also

★ East of England (European Parliament constituency)

★ East of England Regional Assembly

★ List of schools in the East of England

External links

★ Government's list of councils in the East of England

★ Office for National Statistics

★ Government Office for the East of England

★ East of England Development Agency

★ East of England Regional Assembly