AQA GCSE Geography - Changing Economic World - Economic Change in the UK

(Note: This is a summary and not a comprehensive list of every useful statistic)

Causes of economic change in the UK

• Deindustrialisation - the decline of heavy industries in the UK, often based close to where raw materials were mined in places such as the South West and North East of England.

  • The closure of coal mines from the 1970s onwards left a legacy of unemployment, low incomes and environmental dereliction in these regions

  • Manufacturing declined from 55% of total employment in 1900 to just 15% by 2006

• Globalisation - the way businesses, ideas and lifestyles spread rapidly around the world

  • The growth of TNCs and rapid economic development of Asia has led to many jobs being outsourced abroad, leading to factory closures and job losses in the UK

• Government Policies - the government has an important role in the UK’s economy - between 1970 and 2010 state run industries were privatised and jobs were lost

  • Government and private investment also transformed areas such as Canary Wharf from abandoned to highly developed

  • From 2010 onwards there has been a push to encourage investment in high tech manufacturing roles, such as aerospace and computer engineering.

Since the deindustrialisation of the 1970s the UK has moved towards a Post Industrial Economy - meaning the economy has become more centred on service and research based industries (tertiary and quaternary sectors). This can be seen in 4 key trends;

1. Rise of IT - 1.3 million people work in the IT sector as the UK is a world leader

2. Finance and Service industries - employs 2 million people and contributes 10% of GDP yearly

3. Rise of R&D - employs 60,000 people and contributes £3bn to the UK economy

4. Science Parks - over 1500 IT and biotech companies are based in Cambridge, the Science Park opened in 1970

Efforts have been made to breathe new life into former industrial areas - as these places are often key candidates for development due to the skilled workforce and cheaper land prices enticing companies. One example of this is the Nissan plant in Sunderland, which has also been built to be sustainable, showing an example of sustainable industrial development.

Nissan employs 7000 people in its car plant at Sunderland, which opened in 1986 and produced 500,000 cars a year. Its plant is sustainable for many reasons:

• Use of renewables - the car plant has 10 onsite wind turbines, producing 10% of energy required, saving 3000 tons of CO2 emissions (yearly..?)

• Reduction in Air Pollution - Nissan is reducing its use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by switching to water based spray paints

• Water Use Management - Nissan thoroughly processes wastewater, reducing water waste by 2.1% by 2014

• Preventing Soil Pollution - Nissan conducts regular tests of groundwater via regular boring surveys, which are reported to the local government

• Careful Resource Use - Nissan has reduced the waste generated during the manufacturing process by 26% to 2.6kg per vehicle in 2014

Social and economic changes has lead to population growth and decline in different areas of the countryside for different reasons. Some rural areas are experiencing rapid growth, increasing the need for better infrastructure and more housing, while others decline. We will be using Linton in Cambridgeshire as an example of a rural area experiencing growth and the Outer Hebrides in Scotland as an example of a rural area experiencing decline.

Linton

• Rural area south of Cambridge, ranked 6th best place to live in 2016 QoL survey

• Employment rate of 82% (UK average 74%)

• Average gross weekly earnings: £795 (UK average £646)

• Strong vitality levels, 97% of adults in good health

• Male life expectancy is 82 years, female 85.6 years

• House prices are 9x residents salaries with very low crime rates

• Population is expected to grow by 16% by 2026 as people move to the countryside

Outer Hebrides

• Population of just 26,900 on 15 inhabited islands. Declined in 20th Century, but has stabilised since 2003, although it is aging

• Modern commercial activities centre on tourism, crofting, fishing and weaving (Harris Tweed)

• Economic position of islands is precarious - trade deficit of £163.4mn

• Reliant on primary industries and the public sector, vulnerable to changes in market and environment

• Population declined by 50% since 1901 as young people have emigrated to the mainland for better pay

Improvements have to be made to infrastructure to accommodate this economic change within the UK and enable more growth. This has been addressed in many ways through different forms of infrastructure, detailed as follows. Note that not all of these have been very successful ( cough cough Smart Motorways cough cough) so maybe think of an evaluative comment?

Roads - 35 million vehicles on the road and worsening congestion on major roads and motorways, hence push to create ‘smart motorways’ where the hard shoulder can be used as a lane, along with variable speed limits and other technologies to reduce congestion.

Railways - If these can be improved it will reduce the demand for road travel, lessening road congestion, hence projects such as Crossrail in London, which included 32km of new tunnelled railway running East-West across the heart of London, with trains carrying 1500 passengers each - vastly helping to reduce the amount of road journeys.

Ports - importing and exporting products by air is too expensive, and as an island it is vital for the UK to be able to trade across the seas, hence the new ‘London Gateway’ development being constructed on the Thames Estuary, which can accommodate the largest container ships (reducing pressure on Felixstowe and the A14)

Airports - London needs to stay competitive as a ‘world city’ with other major hubs such as NYC and Paris, but both of them have greater airport capacity and Heathrow is running at capacity already - hence the third runway which is being built and will open around 2030, boosting the UK economy by £200bn

Within the UK there is still quite apparent wealth disparity between the wealthy South and the poorer North of England. This is known as the ‘North-South Divide’ and can be seen in the following statistics:

However, there are strategies to try and decrease this disparity in living standards, detailed below:

• HS2 - new High Speed Rail line to ‘the North’ where trains will run at 250mph and would cost £106bn but generate £40bn for the UK economy and create 40,000 jobs in the Midlands and North of England, encouraging more serious investment in the North going forward (HS2 past Birmingham has been scrapped, little to no benefit to North 😐)

• Northern Powerhouse Scheme - UK government partnership to encourage industrial land and infrastructure development in northern England, adding £100bn to the region’s economy and creating 850,000 jobs in the region, spreading economic growth more evenly among cities in the north (since the scheme was announced more trains have run late than ever before in the North… very limited effects)

Finally, we also must consider the role of the UK in the wider economic world. The UK is no longer a member of the EU, having left in 2020, meaning we no longer have access to the ‘free market’ and other European funds - such as the European Structural Fund which supported regional development projects such as the redevelopment of Cardiff Bay in Wales. This does mean the UK is now free to make its own trade deals with other countries however, expanding potential economic influence.

The UK is also the leading country in the Commonwealth, maintaining strong political and economic links with former colonies through this voluntary organisation of over 50 countries. This provides support to individual countries and encourages co-operation between members, meeting every 2 years to discuss issues and work together. Many people from all over the commonwealth have emigrated to other commonwealth countries, tying them together socially - and shared events such as the commonwealth games help to build these close ties.