Local Plumbers

Lambeth Greater London

Approximate Population: 267,785

Lambeth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Lanchei. It was held partly by Lambeth Church and partly by Count Robert of Mortain. Its domesday assets were: 2½ hides; 1 church, 10 ploughs, 22 acres (89,000 m2) of meadow, woodland worth 3 hogs, 19 burgesses in London paid £1 16s 0d. It rendered £15.

The ancient settlement of Lambeth Marsh was immediately opposite the Palace of Westminster.   The Archbishop of Canterbury has had his official residence at Lambeth Palace since the 15th century.   The village was home to boatmen serving the City of London and Westminster.

The riverside village had an extensive parish, which stretched for six miles (10 km) south, including the manors of Kennington and Vauxhall. It formed part of Surrey until the creation of the County of London in 1889.  The parish, and the subsequent Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth (1900–1965), included the later settlements at Brixton and Norwood.

Local Plumbers Lambeth Greater London

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East Kilbride Scotland

Approximate Population: 73,796

East Kilbride grew from a small village of around 900 inhabitants in 1930 to become eventually a large burgh.   Behind this growth lay the rapid industrialisation of the nineteenth century which left much of the working population throughout Scotland’s central belt from Glasgow to Edinburgh living in the housing stock built at the end of that century but accommodating far more people.

The Great War postponed any better housing as did the Treaty of Versailles and the period of post war settlement it created. In turn this was followed by the Great Depression.   After the Second World War, Glasgow, already suffering from chronic shortages of housing, had to deal with bomb damage from the war.

From this unlikely backdrop a new dawn emerged which would bring East Kilbride to its unlikely success.   In 1946 the Greater Glasgow Regional Plan allocated sites where overspill satellite “new towns” could be constructed to help alleviate the housing shortage.  Glasgow would also undertake the development of its peripheral housing estates.   East Kilbride was the first of five new towns in Scotland to be designated, in 1947, followed by Glenrothes (1948), Cumbernauld (1956), Livingston (1962) and Irvine (1964).

The town has been subdivided into residential precincts, each with its own local shops, primary schools and community facilities. The housing precincts surround the town centre, which is bound by a ringroad. Industrial estates are concentrated at sites to the north, west and south, on the outskirts of the town.

Local Plumbers East Kilbride Scotland

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St. Albans Hertfordshire

Approximate Population: 64,038

Apart from its historic core, St Albans is highly suburban in character, with much of its housing stock built in the inter-war years and during post-war expansion. Now entirely surrounded by the Metropolitan Green Belt, it is seeing significant ‘infill’ development and pressure to relax the Green Belt restrictions.

St Albans District (which also includes Harpenden) has house prices considerably above the national average.   The most recent figures give an average house price of £328,820 against a national average of £199,184.   St Albans city, according to figures from Nationwide Building Society, is currently considered to be the most expensive place to live in the UK outside Central London.

This is largely due to fast commuting to London, especially the City, by train. The local road transport network is another factor: St Albans is at the meeting point of the A5183 (the old A5 or Watling Street) and the A1081 (the old A6); the M25 runs east-west just south of the city; and both the M1, only a few miles to the west, and the A1(M), five miles (8 km) to the east, can provide fast connections to London and the north.

Local Plumbers St. Albans Hertfordshire

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Watford Hertfordshire

Approximate Population: 79,600

Watford is a major regional centre for the northern home counties.   It is the most westerly of these commercial centres and the only one in Hertfordshire.   Hertfordshire County Council designates Watford and Stevenage to be its major sub-regional centres, heading its list of preferred sites for retail development.  The primary shopping area is the Harlequin Shopping Centre, a large purpose-built indoor mall with over 140 shops, restaurants and cafes built during the 1990s, opened officially in June 1992.

The High Street, running through the town centre, is the main focus of activity at night having a high concentration of the town’s bars, clubs and restaurants.

The head offices of a number of national companies such as Camelot Group, operator of the National Lottery; Iveco, manufacturers of commercial vehicles; Haden Young, the building services division of Balfour Beatty; Bathstore, the largest bathroom retailer in the UK; construction firm Taylor Woodrow; and Mothercare, are located in the town.   The borough is also the UK base of many multi-nationals including Total Oil, Sanyo, TK Maxx, Costco, Vinci, and Beko.

The town was home to the Scammell Lorries Factory from 1922 until its closure in 1988.   The site is now a residential area.  Plans are underway to develop a new Health Campus complete with heliport adjacent to the site of the current Watford General Hospital.

Local Plumbers Watford Hertfordshire

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Shrewsbury West Midlands

Approximate Population: 70,689

Shrewsbury is home to the Ditherington Flax Mill, the world’s first iron-framed building, which is commonly regarded as “the grandfather of the skyscraper”. Its importance was officially recognised in the 1950s, resulting in it becoming a Grade I listed building.  Shrewsbury in the Industrial Revolution was also located on the Shrewsbury Canal which linked it to the Shropshire Canal and wider canal network of Great Britain.

Shrewsbury has also played a unique part in Western intellectual history, by being the town in which the naturalist Charles Darwin was born and raised. Darwin later published his seminal text On the Origin of Species and developed the theory of natural selection.   Nearby is the village of Wroxeter, 5 miles (8 km) to the south-west, where the now ruined Roman city of Viroconium Cornoviorum lies. Viroconium was the fourth largest civitas capital in Roman Britain. As Caer Guricon it may have served as the early Dark Age capital of the kingdom of Powys.

The town avoided bombing in World War II and so many of its ancient buildings remain intact and there was little redevelopment during the 1960s and 1970s, which arguably destroyed the character of many historic towns in the UK. However, a large area of half timbered houses and businesses was destroyed to make way for the Raven Meadows multi-story car park, and other historic buildings were demolished to make way for the brutalist architectural style of the 1960s.  The town was saved from a new ‘inner ring road’ due to its challenging geography.

Local Plumbers Shrewsbury West Midlands