A couple of times this summer when going Halton-Doncaster, I have made-up for the lack of an official LARS in that middle part of England by taking a chunk of the route as a transit of East Midlands class D from (roughly) Leicester to (roughly) Mansfield. You have to be able to get to a reasonable height (so either CAVOK or have an instrument qualification of some kind) but EMA ATC were always friendly and helpful. As indeed they were when on another occasion when I wanted a low level sightseeing transit over Nottingham just as the EMA primary radar failed. However, that's not relevant to your post.