North of England actually starts in a completely different place, according to controversial study

Personally, I always thought the debate over where the North of England begins was well and truly settled – anything south of Cheshire is the Midlands, end of discussion.

A study by academics at Liverpool University reopened that debate, however, angering Northerners everywhere by claiming the North-south divide actually starts all the way down in Leicestershire.

Leicestershire, are you having a laugh?

Where they think the North starts – via Google Maps

According to them, the population centre has moved from Upper Midway in Derbyshire to Snarestone in Leicestershire as more people are moving to the South East for ‘better employment opportunities’.

They figured this nonsense out by gathering population data on the UK’s most densely populated areas, working out the North-south divide from these figures.

The North of England is a historic region with a variety of accents and proud heritages, just because people have been moving down London for a fancy new job doesn’t mean you can mess with that and claim everything above Leicestershire is ‘Up North’.

Where the North actually starts – via Google Maps

The Professor who led the project, Chris Lloyd, said: “Our study of population changes in Britain finds that the population centre for each Census has moved steadily further south from Upper Midway in Derbyshire to Snarestone in Leicestershire, as the population of the country has shifted towards the south east.

“This reflects a north-south divide in population growth, with more rapid growth in London and the South East of England than elsewhere.

Keep your rapid growth, we’ve got cheap pints, a Greggs on every corner, more culture than you can shake a stick at, and the ability to actually buy a house without going bankrupt.

That’ll do for me…