Market St, Nantwich - 01270 628633 nantwichtc@nantwichtowncouncil.gov.uk

Crewe is a railway town and civil parish within the borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The area has a population of 72,863.

Crewe is perhaps best known as a large railway junction and home to Crewe Works, for many years a major railway engineering facility for manufacturing and overhauling locomotives, but now much reduced in size.

From 1946 until 2002 it was also the home of Rolls-Royce motor car production. The Pyms Lane factory on the west of the town now produces Bentley motor cars exclusively.

Crewe is 158 miles north of London and 35 miles south of Manchester.

The railways still play a part in local industry at Crewe Works, which carries out train maintenance and inspection. It has been owned by Bombardier Transportation since 2001. At its height, the site employed over 20,000 people; in 2005 fewer than 1,000 remained, with a further 270 redundancies announced in November of that year. Much of the site once occupied by the works has been sold off and is now occupied by a supermarket, leisure park, and a large new health centre.

There is still an electric locomotive maintenance depot to the north of the railway station, operated by DB Schenker Rail. The diesel locomotive maintenance depot has recently reopened as a maintenance facility for a private steam company and has undergone major structural repairs.

The Bentley car factory is on Pyms Lane to the west of town. As of early 2010, there are about 3,500 working at the site. The factory used to produce Rolls-Royce cars, until the licence for the brand transferred from Bentley's owners Volkswagen to rival BMW in 2003.

There is a BAE Systems Global Combat Systems factory in the village of Radway Green near Alsager, producing small arms ammunition for the British armed forces.

The headquarters of the off-licence chain Bargain Booze is in the town, as was the head office of Focus DIY plc, which went into administration in 2011.

There are a number of business parks around the town hosting light industry and offices. Crewe Business Park is a 67-acre site with offices, research and IT manufacturing. Major presences on the site include Air Products, Barclay's Bank and Fujitsu Services Ltd. The 12 acre Crewe Gates Industrial Estate is adjacent to Crewe Business Park, with smaller industry including the ice cream van manufacturer Whitby Morrison. The Weston Gate area has light industry and distribution. Marshfield Bank Employment Park is to the west of the town, and includes offices, manufacturing and distribution. There are industrial and light industrial units at Radway Green.

The town has two small shopping centres: the Victoria Centre and the Market Centre. There are indoor and outdoor markets throughout the week. Grand Junction Retail Park is just outside the centre of town. Nantwich Road provides a wide range of secondary local shops, with a variety of small retailers and estate agents.

The Market Centre is the largest shopping centre in Crewe. It is situated in the heart of the town centre with 22 national retailers including River Island, Wilkinsons, Argos, Iceland and Dorothy Perkins. There are three large car parks nearby and Crewe Bus Station is a five-minutes walk from the shopping centre. It has a weekly footfall of approximately 100,000 visitors.