Littler Britain: the 14 council areas with falling populations

The Office for National Statistics has just published its annual population estimates for mid-2018. I have updated a map I first produced two years ago, showing how each area’s population has changed between 2008 and 2018. As well as the colour-coding, you can see the percentage change by hovering over an area. The data is derived from sheet MYE5 of this spreadsheet.

There are 14 council areas whose populations have fallen over the decade (shown in blue), while the UK’s population as whole grew by 7.5%. Most of them are rural and coastal areas: in England they include Cumbria, the Isles of Scilly and (an exception to the rural bit) Blackpool; in Wales, Ceredigion, Powys and Blaenau Gwent. In Scotland, seven council areas have fallen in population, mostly on the west coast: Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Na h-Eileanan Siar (the Western Isles), Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire.

Continue reading “Littler Britain: the 14 council areas with falling populations”

Cornwall’s communications coast: satellite, wireless and cable

With February’s Geek’s Guide to Porthcurno, I have now written a trilogy of pieces for The Register on globally important communications sites in the west of Cornwall. The first was on Goonhilly, the satellite earth station which received the first transatlantic TV pictures in 1962, which is finding a new lease of life as a commercial deep-space communications station. Sadly, it remains closed to most visitors, as Goonhilly’s boss Ian Jones focuses on building a sustainable business. Continue reading “Cornwall’s communications coast: satellite, wireless and cable”

From Tynemouth chic to Whitley Bay, where every day is like Sunday

Tyneside in England’s north-east has a revived centre for everyone in Newcastle and Gateshead, but its coastal edges are struggling, like Whitley Bay, or moving upscale like Tynemouth. It’s like Britain in miniature.

Originally published on Beacon.

Continue reading “From Tynemouth chic to Whitley Bay, where every day is like Sunday”

Marconi on The Lizard: article on radio history for The Register

Following my article on Goonhilly Earth Station in December, The Register has published the other piece I researched while visiting Cornwall last autumn: on how Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian working in Britain, transmitted a signal from Newfoundland to Cornwall and changed the world.

The article is based on two sites on The Lizard peninsula, the southernmost part of Great Britain: the Lizard Wireless Hut, right on its southern edge, and the Marconi Centre and Wireless Field, just above Poldhu Cove on the peninsula’s western coast. Continue reading “Marconi on The Lizard: article on radio history for The Register”