A good part of that though is circular; it's where the 'good' jobs are so people go there for the jobs so the companies set up there because that's where the 'good' people are and... I've worked in enough much smaller towns that could still draw good staff from the surrounding area. Note 'good', I'm not convinced it's more than perception.
The distances I've known people commute over the years horrify me; I know I would take a lower-paying job if it in return saved me something of the 90 minutes per day or or 8-9000 miles a year I've had to drive. From the staff I've known commuting between towns over the years, I find it hard to believe that a company offering good work and reasonable pay in a large town couldn't draw the staff and within a reasonable commuting radius of Northampton as the town in question you've easily got a 1m population, maybe more, let alone the 200k or so as the immediate local work force, keen to cut down the commute.
EDIT: I should add part of the company location suggestion is ease of reach for clients / partners, rather than staff lifestyle. Give yourself a hypothetical 10AM meeting and look at the percentage of UK business you can reach without an obnoxiously early start. London and West Midlands obviously, Thames Valley, pretty much the whole home counties, much of East Anglia, Oxfordshire, Leicester / Derby / Nottingham area, even up as far as Sheffield or Stoke.... Get yourself on the morning flights out of Luton and you've got Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels too at little more cost. A very powerful reach and in a cheap, densely populated area.
The distances I've known people commute over the years horrify me; I know I would take a lower-paying job if it in return saved me something of the 90 minutes per day or or 8-9000 miles a year I've had to drive. From the staff I've known commuting between towns over the years, I find it hard to believe that a company offering good work and reasonable pay in a large town couldn't draw the staff and within a reasonable commuting radius of Northampton as the town in question you've easily got a 1m population, maybe more, let alone the 200k or so as the immediate local work force, keen to cut down the commute.
EDIT: I should add part of the company location suggestion is ease of reach for clients / partners, rather than staff lifestyle. Give yourself a hypothetical 10AM meeting and look at the percentage of UK business you can reach without an obnoxiously early start. London and West Midlands obviously, Thames Valley, pretty much the whole home counties, much of East Anglia, Oxfordshire, Leicester / Derby / Nottingham area, even up as far as Sheffield or Stoke.... Get yourself on the morning flights out of Luton and you've got Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels too at little more cost. A very powerful reach and in a cheap, densely populated area.