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Did You Know?

Fascinating facts and figures in Britain from Above.

Did you know....

  • The English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world: on a typical day 400 plus vessels travel through the Dover Straits, the biggest of which weigh up to 150,000 tonnes and take 3.5 miles to come to a stop.
  • East London's Beckton Sewage Plant - all 280 football pitches worth of tanks, troughs and waterways - is one of the largest in Europe.
  • On an average day, Britain's water pipes carry 16 billion litres of water - enough to fill 18 million bathtubs.
  • In less than a week the waste sent to sewage plants is clean enough to be able to be pumped back into our taps.
  • At the peak of the working day Britons send more than 5,000 text messages per second.
  • 109 square miles of British countryside is just used for landfill.
  • Between 7 and 10am, 36 million Britons are on the move commuting to the office or school.
  • The average road user will spend more than 6 months of their life stuck in traffic jams.
  • Every day more than 7,500 civilian aircraft crowd Britain's airspace, carrying more that half a million passengers.
  • Over three quarters of a billion pounds in hard cash is transported around the roads of Britain every day. Driving one of the secured vans is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country with sometimes 15 attacks a week.
  • Every day the nation's rubbish trucks collect more than 82,000 tonnes of refuse.

some of these facts and figures as featured on ´óÏó´«Ã½ News as video.

Railways across the UK
Between 7 and 10am, 36 million Britons are on the move commuting to the office or school

Also in About

  • Andrew Marr

    About

    Andrew Marr takes to the skies exploring Britain from above.

  • Andrew Marr

    Andrew Marr

    Our host reveals what's excited him most about the analysing our country from the skies.

  • Bowness-on-Solway

    Jason Hawkes' Photography

    Jason Hawkes is one of the world's most respected aerial photographers.

  • Andrew Marr and crowd psychologist Clifford Stott

    Expert Contributors

    Discover how some of Britain's foremost academics, agencies and professional bodies have helped to inform Britain From Above.

  • A keyboard

    FAQs

    Here is a list of the most frequently asked questions about Britain from Above.

  • A tape library

    Credits

    Britain from Above was developed and produced by Lion Television for the ´óÏó´«Ã½. A true multiplatform project the team worked across the television series and interactive.

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