Economy
The Vale used to have a thriving dairy industry, especially in the 1960s. That has dwindled to just a few herds of dairy cows, in the first years of the 21st century. Farming is now mostly arable.
Natural mineral resources are mined (quarried) in the Vale. These include sand, gravel and (formerly) Fuller's Earth.
With the closure of the MG works at Abingdon, there is no motor industry, apart from some specialist car makers and component factories.
The length of the Vale is traversed by the Great Western Main Line and the Cherwell Valley Line. Appleford railway station and Radley railway station are now the only stations within the Vale, although there used to be stations at Challow, Uffington, Grove (near Wantage), Abingdon and Steventon. These all closed as part of the Beeching cuts, in the early 1960s. The nearest main line stations are now Swindon, Oxford and Didcot Parkway.
At one time Amey plc had its head office in Sutton Courtenay, Vale of White Horse.
Read more about this topic: Vale Of White Horse
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)