Stapleford - at the country's hub

Stapleford, is near the centre of England & Wales - take a line from Berwick-on-Tweed to the Isle of Wight and Great Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast to Holyhead on Anglesey and they cross within a few miles of  Stapleford.

At the country's transport network hub

It is also at the centre of Britain's transport network, and, as far as we can tell, it has been for several thousand years.  The Erewash Valley carries:

• The M1, Britain's main motorway [Junction 25 for Stapleford]
• The mainline railway from London to Sheffield
• The River Erewash itself of course
• The Erewash Canal - still in use by narrow-boats
• East Midlands Airport is 10 minutes drive away
• A new mainline Parkway Station is planned for Ratcliffe-on-Soar just 5 miles down the M1
• Toton Rail Sidings used to be the largest marshalling yard in Western Europe. Now it is largely unused, although EWS use a part of it as their main maintenance depot. However there are plans to turn it back into a major freight station as part of the Central Railway's proposed Liverpool-London-France route.