page_title: South East England
section_title: Oxfordshire
hierarchical_section_title: South East England / Economy / Oxfordshire
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial photograph of part of the Vale of White Horse, showing the Williams F1 works at Grove in the foreground, Didcot Power Station in the distance, and the Great Western Main Line passing them both
context_page_description: South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex.
  It is the third largest region of England, with an area of 19,096 km², and is also the most populous with a total population of over eight and a half million. The headquarters of the region's governmental bodies are in Guildford, and the region contains seven chartered cities: Brighton and Hove, Canterbury, Chichester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Southampton and Winchester, though other major settlements include Reading, Medway, Milton Keynes and Slough. Its proximity to London and connections to several national motorways have led to South East England becoming an economic hub, with the largest economy in the country outside the capital. It is the location of Gatwick Airport, the UK's second-busiest airport, and its coastline along the English Channel provides numerous ferry crossings to mainland Europe.
context_section_description: Oxford University Press, Blackwell UK, Electrocomponents and Amey plc are in Oxford as is the BMW plant that builds the Mini. BMW assemble the MINI at Cowley; in the south of Oxford is Unipart and TI Automotive UK. South of Oxford in Littlemore, off the A4074 at the Oxford Science Park is Nominet UK (UK domain names). SAE Institute has its world HQ on Littlemore Park off the A4074. Grafton Merchanting GB (Buildbase, and Hirebase) are on Oxford Business Park in Cowley, with Electrocomponents next to Publishing Technology, Blackwell UK and Harley Davidson UK; to the south on the side of the B480 is Oxfam GB at Oxfam House, BT iNet, and TI Automotive; further north along the B480 at the B4495 junction is Macmillan Education, a leading worldwide publisher of school textbooks, with Genzyme UK (owned since 2011 by Sanofi).
  Ascari are in Banbury. Kenco coffee is made at Kraft Foods Banbury owned by Mondelēz International (former Kraft before October 2010) with Café HAG and Carte Noir off A422/A423 roundabout opposite a Tesco; the site was built to make Bird's Custard in 1964, by General Foods who were bought by Kraft in 1990, and claims to be the biggest coffee-production site in Europe; Nestle make much of their coffee in South Derbyshire. On other side of A422 to Kraft is a manufacturing site of Dematic UK, with Terex MHPS (former Demag Cranes), and Kannegiesser UK (industrial clothes washers). On north-east side of Banbury is the large site of Norbar Torque, who are a main international manufacturer of torque wrenchs. Next door is a large factory of Barry Callebaut UK, a Swiss manufacturer of cocoa (for Nestle and Cadbury), on the Wildmere Road Ind Est, north of the A422 near the M40 junction 11. Prodrive are on the north of the estate, and iSOFT are on the east near the M40. Further north was a main site of Alcan Extrusions (former British Aluminium, bought by Alcan in 1982), which closed in 2008. After the Buncefield fire damaged the Golden West bakery nearby in 2005, which made McDonald's burger buns, all the UK production had to be made at its Heywood (Lancashire) site; Golden West did not rebuild the Hertfordshire site, and opened a new site (Trousdale Bakeries, owned by C.H. Guenther) in Banbury on the south of the estate.
  Yaskawa UK (Motoman robotic welding equipment) is on the Wildmere Ind Est, off the A422 near junction 11; Kärcher UK (pressure washers) are nearby off the A423. Marussia F1 are in the east of Banbury. Hook Norton Brewery is to the south-west. Travelodge UK is at the at A418/B4445 roundabout in Thame next to CPM Group (the UK's largest field marketing company), with Lucy Electric (switchgear) in the east of Thame off the B4012, with the UK site of UMC (branded televisions from Slovakia). Kubota UK, the tractor manufacturer, on the B4445, is the UK market leader of ride-on (diesel) lawn mowers; Kidde Products UK (fire protection) is off the B4012. Renault F1 is in Enstone; off B4030 at Enstone Airfield Complex, Oxford Plastics is the largest manufacturer of traffic cones in the world. Airbus Helicopters UK (Eurocopter before 2014) is at London Oxford Airport. Agilent Technologies (former Magnex Scientific) make superconducting magnets for NMR applications on the A44 next to the railway at Yarnton. Solid State Logic (mixing consoles) is at Begbroke on the A44, which has the Begbroke Science Park.
  The Leadbitter Group (construction) and the UK base of Miele and Sophos are on the Abingdon Science Park. The Joint European Torus is developing fusion power at Culham on a former airfield. Also on the Culham Science Centre at Clifton Hampden is the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, and the re-usable Skylon spacecraft is being developed by Reaction Engines Limited; ABSL Space Products Culham (owned by EnerSys) made batteries for Philae. The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Diamond Light Source (built by the Wellcome Trust) are on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Chilton and East Hendred. Harwell has an office of Telespazio VEGA UK (satellites) and the UK's base of the European Space Agency (
caption: Williams F1 at Grove, next to the Great Western Main Line and A338, north of Wantage
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