Discussion regarding regions

[stadler]

That depends who you ask! Traveline had Hampshire and the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth as included in their SW Region. A potty decision (by the local authorities) as the vast majority of their transport connections are with South East counties (which included the Isle of Wight)

Funnily I thought the opposite, in the Network South East years, I thought NSE had a odd presence here as Dorset is in the SW region then it changed into SWT, I thought that's better then I remembered about more SE region counties like Hampshire also being covered too.

SWT/SWR mostly centres around the SWML to/from Waterloo - see SWR's cyan blue logo, rather than geographically.

I would say places like Andover / Bournemouth / Salisbury / Portsmouth / Southampton / Weymouth are definitely South East. I have never heard anyone consider these to be in the South West. Traveline putting them in South West instead of South East was very unusual.

South Western Railway operate in the South West of London and in the South West of the South East England area. But they do not really operate in South West England other than the small bit around the Exeter area. I have always thought the TOC name meant either ths South West of London or the South West of the South East England area.

This is how i have always considered the regions:

South East - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire.

South West - Avon, Devon, Cornwall, Isles Of Scilly, Somerset.

East Midlands - Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland.

West Midlands - Gloucestershire, Greater Birmingham, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire.

North East - Durham, Greater Newcastle, Northumberland, Tyne, Tees, Wear, Yorkshire.

North West - Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Lancashire.

But it is probably something up for debate. Different people will have different definitions of what falls in what regions. Especially more towards the border you get more debate.

 

[JamesT]

I would say places like Andover / Bournemouth / Salisbury / Portsmouth / Southampton / Weymouth are definitely South East. I have never heard anyone consider these to be in the South West. Traveline putting them in South West instead of South East was very unusual.

South Western Railway operate in the South West of London and in the South West of the South East England area. But they do not really operate in South West England other than the small bit around the Exeter area. I have always thought the TOC name meant either ths South West of London or the South West of the South East England area.

This is how i have always considered the regions:

South East - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire.

South West - Avon, Devon, Cornwall, Isles Of Scilly, Somerset.

East Midlands - Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland.

West Midlands - Gloucestershire, Greater Birmingham, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire.

North East - Durham, Greater Newcastle, Northumberland, Tyne, Tees, Wear, Yorkshire.

North West - Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Lancashire.

But it is probably something up for debate. Different people will have different definitions of what falls in what regions. Especially more towards the border you get more debate.

There are official government regions, you could follow those rather than making up your own definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England

And from the article on the South-West: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England

South West England consists of the counties of Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and large towns in the region include Bath, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cheltenham, Exeter, Gloucester, Plymouth and Swindon.

 

[m0ffy]

There are official government regions, you could follow those rather than making up your own definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England

And from the article on the South-West: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_England

It’s off topic, but the utilities follow some wild regions. Coventry is in East, West, and Central Midlands for electricity, gas, and telephones, respectively.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I would say places like Andover / Bournemouth / Salisbury / Portsmouth / Southampton / Weymouth are definitely South East. I have never heard anyone consider these to be in the South West. Traveline putting them in South West instead of South East was very unusual.

South Western Railway operate in the South West of London and in the South West of the South East England area. But they do not really operate in South West England other than the small bit around the Exeter area. I have always thought the TOC name meant either ths South West of London or the South West of the South East England area.

This is how i have always considered the regions:

South East - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire.

South West - Avon, Devon, Cornwall, Isles Of Scilly, Somerset.

East Midlands - Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland.

West Midlands - Gloucestershire, Greater Birmingham, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire.

North East - Durham, Greater Newcastle, Northumberland, Tyne, Tees, Wear, Yorkshire.

North West - Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Lancashire.

But it is probably something up for debate. Different people will have different definitions of what falls in what regions. Especially more towards the border you get more debate.

Pretty close to the official regions, but:
London is defined as its own region, as is Yorkshire (which also includes a slice of Lincolnshire but excludes Teesside)
Beds, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Herts, Norfolk and Suffolk are a separate region (Eastern England)
Dorset and Gloucestershire are in the SW
Northamptonshire is officially in the East Midlands

Or we could go baclk to the heptarchy, which might, even after 1000 years of history, have more cultural relevance:
NE - Northumbria (Bernicia)
Yorkshire - Northumbria (Deira)
NW Greater Cumbria
West Midlands - Englsih Mercia
East Midlands - Danish Mercia (Danelaw)
East England - East Anglia
South West - Wessex
South East - Greater Kent

 

[dorsetdesiro]

South East - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire.

But it is probably something up for debate. Different people will have different definitions of what falls in what regions. Especially more towards the border you get more debate.

Ha ha, oh god no... I wouldn't put Dorset in the South East, I remember my grandparents mentioning the 1974 government changes when Bournemouth was moved from Hampshire to Dorset - Bournemouth folk weren't happy about the transfer as they looked down on Poole next door, they considered Dorset people as "Ooh aar West Country bumpkins". The horror of going from being associated with grandiose New Forest & Winchester to something like rural wilderness where nothing happens until Exeter!

They obviously forgot they had the likes of Southampton, Basingstoke, Portsmouth & Andover - not always pretty places lol.

Before 1974, the two towns of Bmth & Poole had the unusual situation of being split between two counties and regions slap bang in the middle of the urban area, so people west of Bournemouth may consider themselves as South West/West Country as Dorset offically never had been part of the South East.

 

[Grecian 1998]

South West - Avon, Devon, Cornwall, Isles Of Scilly, Somerset.

Avon only existed for 25 years. I don't think anyone misses it. This definition would mean that Yate is in the South West, but Lyme Regis, around 70 miles further south-west, is in the South East.

I grew up in West Dorset and certainly no-one there would regard themselves as South-East - it was definitely Westcountry. Possibly the liberated territories of Bournemouth and Christchurch might, but no-one else. I doubt Wiltshire considers itself South-East either - Chippenham is only 25 miles from Bristol.

That said, I went to university in Southampton and that certainly regarded itself as South Coast (south central really), not South East. Curiously everyone born in 1965 or earlier (obviously that's an approximate, I don't start conversations by asking people how old they are) seemed to have a southern accent (more akin to Westcountry than London), whilst everyone younger than that sounded like they were auditioning for a Guy Ritchie film.

The government definitions generally seem about right, although I'd put Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and (south) Essex in the South-East rather than what is essentially East Anglia. You could probably argue that there is a 'South' region taking in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. You could probably also argue that Cumbria, Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland could form a 'Great North' region, given their remoteness from the more densely populated parts of the north (yes I know Tyne & Wear is a major exception).

Bournemouth folk weren't happy about the transfer as they looked down on Poole next door, they considered Dorset people as "Ooh aar West Country bumpkins".

The football team AFC Bournemouth seem to have Pride of Dorset flags amongst their fanbase, but not Pride of Hampshire, so it seems they're reconciled to being part of Dorset these days. It has been 51 years though.

 

[Magdalia]

The government definitions generally seem about right, although I'd put Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and (south) Essex in the South-East rather than what is essentially East Anglia.

As one of the few East Anglian nationalists, even I'm not really sure where the boundary of East Anglia is.

East Anglia definitely includes all of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, but I would also claim the following.

Bits of Essex are ours, the Stour and Colne Valleys, including Colchester, and the headwaters of the River Cam, including Saffron Walden.

The northern edge of Hertfordshire, anything that drains into the Rivers Cam or Great Ouse, including Royston and Hitchin.

Most of Bedfordshire, but I'm not convinced that Leighton Buzzard is East Anglian.

In Lincolnshire, the lower parts of the Welland valley below Stamford including the Fens around Spalding.

 

[3141]

It’s off topic, but the utilities follow some wild regions. Coventry is in East, West, and Central Midlands for electricity, gas, and telephones, respectively.

In the late 1970s we lived in Hinckley (Leicestershire), where electricity came from the East Midlands Electricity Board and gas from the West Midlands Gas Board.

But there's always scope for uncertainty and inconsistency along the fringes of any arrangement. In this case, it might have had something to do with storage and distribution arrangements going back to the time before they were nationalised.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

As one of the few East Anglian nationalists, even I'm not really sure where the boundary of East Anglia is.

East Anglia definitely includes all of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, but I would also claim the following.

Bits of Essex are ours, the Stour and Colne Valleys, including Colchester, and the headwaters of the River Cam, including Saffron Walden.

The northern edge of Hertfordshire, anything that drains into the Rivers Cam or Great Ouse, including Royston and Hitchin.

Most of Bedfordshire, but I'm not convinced that Leighton Buzzard is East Anglian.

In Lincolnshire, the lower parts of the Welland valley below Stamford including the Fens around Spalding.

In terms of vibes, I do think there is a distinct thing as Home Counties. And Essex is halfway one of them, and halfway in East Anglia. I believe half of Essex is in the London Ambulance area and the rest in East of England for some kind precedent for this view. Bedfordshire and definitely Hertfordshire are home counties. Lincolnshire is almost it's own thing in my head. It's like "rural" East Midlands, as East mids is (to me) inextricably associated with coal (mining/power stations) and the urban areas of Nottingham and Leicester. In this sense, Peterborough is a total wormhole vortex where East Mids meets East Anglia and Home Counties (I think Cambridgeshire sometimes has Home Counties aura)

 

[DelW]

Most of Bedfordshire, but I'm not convinced that Leighton Buzzard is East Anglian.

When I used to stay with a friend in Milton Keynes, her "local" TV news was from East Anglia, based in Cambridge I think. That always seemed an anomaly to me.

Terrestrial TV can depend on very local geography though. In my area your local TV news is either from London or Southampton depending which direction your aerial is pointed, and that often depends which side of a hill you are on.

Streaming presumably allows you to choose your preferred area, which might not be "local" at all.

 

[PTR 444]

I’ve always imagined BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) and the more urban parts of East Dorset being in the South East, with the rural parts of Dorset being in the South West.

Geographically if you follow counties, you will always get anomalies at region borders, where parts of the South West are further east than parts of the South East (Tidworth, Wiltshire and Ringwood, Hampshire for example)

 

[BingMan]

I live near Buxton in the High Peak district in Northwest Derbyshire and we are officially in the East Midlands.
Which is ridiculous since out main transport links and cultural associations are to Manchester and Sheffield.
Over a recent bank holiday I needed an emergency dentist and was not allowed an appointment in Stockport, a thirty minute train ride away, because I live in the East Midlands. Instead I had to make the much longer and very expensive trip to Nottingham.

The situation is even sillier in Glossop where half the population were moved out of Manchester and still consider themselves Mancunians.
How somewhere west of the Pennines and North of the Mersey can be East Midlands beggars belief

 

[Lewisham2221]

I live near Buxton in the High Peak district in Northwest Derbyshire and we are officially in the East Midlands.
Which is ridiculous since out main transport links and cultural associations are to Manchester and Sheffield.
Over a recent bank holiday I needed an emergency dentist and was not allowed an appointment in Stockport, a thirty minute train ride away, because I live in the East Midlands. Instead I had to make the much longer and very expensive trip to Nottingham.

The situation is even sillier in Glossop where half the population were moved out of Manchester and still consider themselves Mancunians.
How somewhere west of the Pennines and North of the Mersey can be East Midlands beggars belief

Meanwhile, when it comes to Traffic Commissioners (responsible for PSV/HGV licencing etc), the whole of Derbyshire and Derby falls under the North West area.

 

[gg1]

The situation is even sillier in Glossop where half the population were moved out of Manchester and still consider themselves Mancunians.
How somewhere west of the Pennines and North of the Mersey can be East Midlands beggars belief

Glossop is now considered part of the 'Greater Manchester built up area', even more bizarre than that, so is Newton Le Willows despite being closer to the centre of Liverpool than to the centre of Manchester.

 

[sor]

When I used to stay with a friend in Milton Keynes, her "local" TV news was from East Anglia, based in Cambridge I think. That always seemed an anomaly to me.

Terrestrial TV can depend on very local geography though. In my area your local TV news is either from London or Southampton depending which direction your aerial is pointed, and that often depends which side of a hill you are on.

Streaming presumably allows you to choose your preferred area, which might not be "local" at all.

I once lived in a block of flats in Reading where the communal aerial was pointed at Crystal Palace and thus received London TV, rather than the more obvious choice of the south east. I suppose in years past, when regional TV was actually regional, there might have been appeal in having two aerials to get both regions.

Of course the original example of the South West has always meant different things to different people. "South West" TV/radio actually means "Devon, Cornwall/IoS, and western parts of Somerset and Dorset" with the BBC including the Channel Islands as well. The political region goes all the way up to Gloucestershire. British Rail decided that Exeter and East Devon is part of the South East if reached via a specific line. The EU included Gibraltar in its South West England constituency.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

The network south east/ network railcard area boundary is rather strange as it will give you a discount all the way to Exeter or across the Cotswolds line, but only as far as Manningtree on GEML. Clearly they think Suffolk/Norfolk are not southeast!

 

[Magdalia]

I do think there is a distinct thing as Home Counties.

The Home Counties are an archaic concept dating back to before financial deregulation in the 1980s. They didn't extend beyond the counties adjacent to London, and Cambridgeshire has never been regarded as Home Counties. I don't think that the Home Counties identity survived the huge expansion of London commuting after financial deregulation.

When I used to stay with a friend in Milton Keynes, her "local" TV news was from East Anglia, based in Cambridge I think. That always seemed an anomaly to me.

Terrestrial TV can depend on very local geography though.

TV did allow East Anglia to extend itself westward, to anywhere that could receive a signal from the mighty Sandy Heath transmitter (which is in Bedfordshire).

BBC closed their Cambridge studio, but Look East I think still covers Milton Keynes and Northampton.

The network south east/ network railcard area boundary is rather strange as it will give you a discount all the way to Exeter or across the Cotswolds line, but only as far as Manningtree on GEML. Clearly they think Suffolk/Norfolk are not southeast!

Network SouthEast extends to Kings Lynn which is in Norfolk and Sudbury which is in Suffolk.

Of all the official government regions I always found the South East the most amorphous. I couldn't see what Milton Keynes had in common with Planet Thanet.

 

[GraphitProjekt]

The Home Counties are an archaic concept dating back to before financial deregulation in the 1980s. They didn't extend beyond the counties adjacent to London, and Cambridgeshire has never been regarded as Home Counties. I don't think that the Home Counties identity survived the huge expansion of London commuting after financial deregulation.

That's one way of looking at it for sure. I've always imagined the Home Counties identity as still extant mainly from the perspective of someone who isn't part of it. To me, the identity of the home counties is linked ti people who's parents spilled out from London between the 1960s and 1990s.

Network SouthEast extends to Kings Lynn which is in Norfolk and Sudbury which is in Suffolk.

Of all the official government regions I always found the South East the most amorphous. I couldn't see what Milton Keynes had in common with Planet Thanet.

But why not Norwich, if Kings Lynn! Seems excessively arbitrary to me, I imagine it's to do with the old extents of Intercity and NSE but now that it's just a railcard and that the Norwich-London train is more and more feeling like an extended outer-suburban service, it's always struck me as a bit unfair

 

[dorsetdesiro]

The football team AFC Bournemouth seem to have Pride of Dorset flags amongst their fanbase, but not Pride of Hampshire, so it seems they're reconciled to being part of Dorset these days. It has been 51 years though.

Past greivances would naturally fade over time as Bournemouth-born generations post-74 would have Dorset on their birth certificates and would have no knowledge of living under Hampshire.

On the other hand, BCP is looking like a forced & unhappy marriage that some in Poole speak about putting the gates back up at Westbourne and Christchurch wanting back under Dorset or merging with New Forest district. The Bournemouth based councillors come across as too toxic & overpowering which BCP had been reported & investigated for its corruption. Hope things will improve for the residents through future reform or separation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 May 2025 ==

I’ve always imagined BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) and the more urban parts of East Dorset being in the South East, with the rural parts of Dorset being in the South West.

Geographically if you follow counties, you will always get anomalies at region borders, where parts of the South West are further east than parts of the South East (Tidworth, Wiltshire and Ringwood, Hampshire for example)

Yes, the border in the past likely would have been around Trickets Cross/St Leonards instead of Ringwood.

The other borders, since closed up, would have been at Bear Cross, Wallisdown, the Stour bridge between Kinson & West Parley, also where Hurn meets West Parley near the airport.

The County Gates (Westbourne) border had moved to where it is today near Chewton Glen in Walkford (Christchurch).

I recently learnt a interesting little fact, Kinson, currently a Bournemouth district, was originally part of Dorset then transferred to Hampshire in the 1930s, for 40 odd years, then back to Dorset in the 1970s.

Kinson would have been a hamlet in a predominantly rural area at the time, then Bournemouth grew as an urban area thus absorbing it and taking it into Hampshire.

 

[A S Leib]

There's at least one non-government / media definition which puts part of London in the Midlands (the South Midlands Korfball Association apparently covers Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Harrow).

Hertfordshire (and, to a lesser extent and without speaking as somebody from there, Essex) being in the East rather than South East feels like it's meant to avoid having too large of a South East region, with London being far more of a defining location than somewhere like Cambridge or Norwich.

The Isle of Wight feels more SW than SE to me, but I know that in e.g. ferry links everything goes towards mainland Hampshire (/ Portsea).

 

[Magdalia]

But why not Norwich, if Kings Lynn! Seems excessively arbitrary to me, I imagine it's to do with the old extents of Intercity and NSE but now that it's just a railcard and that the Norwich-London train is more and more feeling like an extended outer-suburban service, it's always struck me as a bit unfair

Sectorisation in the early 1980s decided this.

In 1984 the Department of Transport wanted Inter City to run without any subsidy. Liverpool Street-Norwich and the Gatwick Express were added to Inter City because they made a profit.

London being far more of a defining location than somewhere like Cambridge or Norwich.

East Anglia has never settled on a dominant City. In Roman times it was Ely and in Anglo Saxon times it was Bury St Edmunds. In the Middle Ages there is a case for it being Dunwich, which subsequently disappeared into the sea.

In a few years time I expect Cambridge to become what you call the defining location.

 

[nw1]

Ha ha, oh god no... I wouldn't put Dorset in the South East, I remember my grandparents mentioning the 1974 government changes when Bournemouth was moved from Hampshire to Dorset - Bournemouth folk weren't happy about the transfer as they looked down on Poole next door, they considered Dorset people as "Ooh aar West Country bumpkins". The horror of going from being associated with grandiose New Forest & Winchester to something like rural wilderness where nothing happens until Exeter!

It's funny, I've always thought of Bournemouth as culturally as well as politically in Dorset but then again I didn't move down south, as a child, until the end of the 70s and first visited Bournemouth in 1980, when it been Dorset for a good few years. So I never knew Bournemouth as anything other than Dorset.

As a seaside location, albeit an important economic centre too, Bournemouth seems to have more in common with (pre-1974) Dorset than Hampshire whose coast is more typified by sailing activities and industry than seaside.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 May 2025 ==

I would say places like Andover / Bournemouth / Salisbury / Portsmouth / Southampton / Weymouth are definitely South East. I have never heard anyone consider these to be in the South West. Traveline putting them in South West instead of South East was very unusual.

Of those I would only consider Portsmouth as possibly South East. Definitely not Weymouth and not Bournemouth, Andover or Southampton either.
Though of these only Weymouth is a possible candidate for South West. These locations I'd classify as Central South or Wessex, too far west to be South East and too far East to be South West.

South Western Railway operate in the South West of London and in the South West of the South East England area. But they do not really operate in South West England other than the small bit around the Exeter area. I have always thought the TOC name meant either ths South West of London or the South West of the South East England area.

This is how i have always considered the regions:

South East - Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Essex, Greater London, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Kent, Norfolk, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire.

For me a narrower definition: Surrey, Kent, West and East Sussex, Hertfordshire, most of Buckinghamshire, and those parts of Berkshire and Oxfordshire east of Reading. Perhaps also the extreme NE of Hampshire (e.g. areas such as Farnborough, Fleet, Bordon, etc - basically to the east of the chalk).

Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire as well as probably Essex would be East Anglia.

Beds and Northants along with North Buckinghamshire would go in a region I call "M1 Country"... it seems too far north to be in the South, yet too far south to be in the Midlands.

South West - Avon, Devon, Cornwall, Isles Of Scilly, Somerset.

The same, plus Dorset and Wiltshire west and northwest of the Downs. For example I'd consider places like Trowbridge, Westbury and Sherborne as part of the South West but not places within or to the south and east of the chalk.

The Central South I'd consider as most of Hampshire (except perhaps the far northeast), Isle of Wight, much of Wiltshire and Dorset (aside from the places north and west of the chalk) and those areas of Berkshire and Oxfordshire west of Reading.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 May 2025 ==

I live near Buxton in the High Peak district in Northwest Derbyshire and we are officially in the East Midlands.
Which is ridiculous since out main transport links and cultural associations are to Manchester and Sheffield.
Over a recent bank holiday I needed an emergency dentist and was not allowed an appointment in Stockport, a thirty minute train ride away, because I live in the East Midlands. Instead I had to make the much longer and very expensive trip to Nottingham.

The situation is even sillier in Glossop where half the population were moved out of Manchester and still consider themselves Mancunians.
How somewhere west of the Pennines and North of the Mersey can be East Midlands beggars belief

I've always thought of the High Peak as northwest, to be honest, for the reasons you give.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

If an actual official "Southern England" region was created, in between SW and SE, then this likely would have included Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Berkshire & Oxfordshire. Not sure about Surrey & West Sussex, maybe them too? East Sussex is definitely SE.