Preston is still quite affluent, and has moved up a lot socially and economically, even if the area itself isn’t the prettiest (rather like many urban parts of Ipswich) Farnell and especially CPC must be a massive boost to the local economy of the area as its taken over a lot of the electronics market for both components and manufactured items. I know the accent fairly well because I often have to speak to their call centres and it sounds a lot more “posh” than the stereotypical ideas of Northern accents/dialects anyone down South is fed by the telly (which ironically is all produced up North anyway).
I use them for both work and my home studio kit/electronics projects and they are a key supplier for the radio station – and it must be about £20 000 + per year of business combined, all of which would previously have gone to Southern suppliers but there aren’t any around who can compete as well as them, and I’d rather keep the business in the UK even though I can use the Eurozone suppliers.
Incidentally just 10 years ago Farnell was seen as only for top boffins and professor types and obscure things you couldn’t get from RS (radiospares) and I’d never even heard of CPC. So they’ve done well and that must be a massive boost to the economy.
that means the feds/councils tolerate a bit of weekend hedonism provided enough people are in work or education – a bit like Reading (SE England) 10 years ago, which was also then a very high tech area (it still is, but because much of the work is software rather than hardware many jobs got banglalored).
