Unit 15 A special project
Leslie Maxwell: Hello, I'm here inside the shopping Centre at Telford.
I was expecting this town to be a bit of a concrete jungle,
like some of the other new towns I've visited.
But the mixture of housing, good roads,
parks and clean modern industry make this really a very pleasant place.
Right here next to the indoor shopping centre is the town park
and just up the road is some of the best scenery in England -
and unspoilt countryside just outside the town boundary.
Also, nearby is the world's first iron bridge, built in 1779,
and a symbol of the industrial revolution that started in the area in 1709.
Telford has the biggest concentration of Japanese companiesin the United Kingdom:
Epson Telford (they invested 15m in a new plant manufcturing computer printers),
NEC (they 've invested over 50m in a plant manufacturing computer monitors and printers,
mobile telephones and fax machines) they employ around 750 people here,
Hitachi Maxell have their European headquarters here and make video cassettes and floppy disks,
and ricoh manufactures photocopiers for sale throughout Europe.
Also here are Tatung, from Taiwan, with 400 workers making TVs.
Although Telford's quite a good place for sports and leisure (Telford even has its own dry ski slope),
it's not too good for entertainments and cultural activities.
You have to go to Birmingham 30 miles away for that kind of thing,
but the shops here are good and this shopping mall I'm in now is quite impressive.
As you know, Telford has its own motorway, the M54 connecting it to the M6,
but although it has a brand new Central Station,
connections to London are not very regular or quick.
Birmingham Airport and the National Exhibition Centre are 40 minutes away - if there aren't any hold-ups on the motorway!
Leslie Maxwell: I'm sitting outside the Orwell Pub at Wigan Pier on the leeds and Liverpool canal having a drink.
This is the place George Orwell wrote about during the Great Depression in the 30s
and to me Wigan still had a bad image of being a run-down coal mining town.
This is the first time I've been here and I must say that I'm quite impressed.
It's very clean and it had a great atmosphere.
You get the feeling that the people are proud of their history and are keen to make a visitor feel welcome.
Lancashire people are famous for their warmth and hospitality.
Wigan itself is a down-to-earth, no-nonsense sort of town,
many of the houses are Victorian and beginning to show their age,
but there's been a lot of urban renewal with modern houses outside the town and good sports facilities.
It's not very far to the Lancashire coast and the Pennine Hills,
so it's quite easy to get away from the town by car and enjoy some fresh air and scenery.
The shops are a nice mixture of the old and the new too.
You're also mid-way between Liverpool and Manchester,
which both have fine theatres and symphony orchestras.
The main line from London to Glasgow passes through Wigan,
and you can be in London in just under 3 hours.
manchester Airport is just 40 minutes away - with connections to all parts of Europe
and even to Singapore and North America.
Lee Carter: I'm here now in Binghamton, in Upstate New York.
I'm sitting in Ely Park overlooking the city.
This is a charming little city,
it's safe and pretty - though maybe it's a little dull.
The people are kind of slow and hospitable and it's hard to believe that
you're just a couple of hours from downtown Manhattan and that
practically every city from Chicage in the west to Boston in the east
and from washington in the south to Toronto and Tontreal in the north can be reached by overnight truck.
In spite of the first impression you get of being in the heart of the country,
there's plenty of high tech industry here in town:
there's a new IBM plant and Singer-Link make their famous flight simulators right here.
Here too there are plenty of people without special techincal skills -
one of the largest employers in the area is Fisher Price Toys whose workforce is largely semi-skilled.
One thing that strikes me about the people hereabouts is that they are dependable and loyal
and they're not afraid of hard work - indeed many of them
come from farming communities where even the children have to work.
One of the big attractions of the area is the beautiful scenery.
The forests in the fall are glorious and in winter the main skiing resorts
of the Eastern United States are just an hour's drive away.
There are some lovely lakes too.
People are moving out of New York City to get away from commuting
and urban crime and to get closer to nature.
Lee Carter: I'm sitting beside the Delaware River in Trenton, New Jersey.
I've just been finding out about the huge range of industry here in this state,
which is the size of Wales but has about the same population as Sweden.
New Jersey is one of the most popular states for foreign companies to establish
their headquarters: BASF, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Volkswagen,
Toyota, Nissan, Fiat all have their US headquarters here.
Big foreign companies with factories here are Oki Data & Sharp from Japan and samsung & Daewoo from Korea.
New Jersey is the number one state in the Union for pharmaceuticals with Hoffman-La Roche,
Ciba-Geigy, JOhnson & Johnson and Merck.
Throughout the state each year $4 billion being spent on research in academic and industrial R&D labs,
including Bell Laboratories, ITT, AT&T, RCA - the people are very proud that 11 Nobel Prize winners live in New Jersey.
Here in Trenton I've been looking at the amazing
DHC (district heating and cooling system) operating in our premises.
Heating and cooling costs will be low because surplus heat generated
by electric power stations is turned into steam,
hot water and even cooled water for distribution by pipes to homes and industrial premises.
New Jersey calls itself the Garden State and it's true that once you get beyond
the urban areas of Newark and Jersey City, the countryside begins.
One great plus is the ocean - New Jersey has 127 miles of coast.
And with the huge air network of Newark International Airport close, it's easy to get anywhere in North America and to anywhere in the world on a direct flight.
From here it's just a short drive to Philadelphia or New York City.
Trenton itself is a pleasant city, though parts of it are a bit run-down.
The people here are good workers and there's a long industrial tradition in the state.
It's a nice plane and not too large - it's quite a lively sort of place
and there's a highly varied misture of different races and nationalities.