Although ‘cool’ is a subjective term, you can usually tell cool clothes by what’s on the catwalk or cool music based on what DJs are playing. But how do you figure out if where you live is cool?
At Time Out, we like to judge it on a few things – the amount of new food, drink and cultural offerings, the quality of a night out and the strength of a community to name a few. That’s how we narrowed down our list of the world’s coolest neighbourhoods for 2024.
But the Sunday Times has its own list of criteria. The newspaper has released its own list of the UK’s coolest postcodes, favouring areas that are sporty, off-grid, crafty and that offer up some posh grub. (It also used the word ‘hip’, so we’ll let you be the judge of its cool credentials.)
In no particular order, Pontcanna in Cardiff was one of the spotlighted neighbourhoods. The Sunday Times called it a ‘lush enclave to the west of Cardiff city centre’, ideal for parents who consider themselves part of the cool crowd.
Ouseburn in Newcastle was next to feature owing to its ‘post industrial design’, ‘glut of excellent boozers’ and artsy community spaces. The newspaper also predicted that London’s Clapham will go up on the cool scale this year thanks to the arrival of new small plates restaurants, coffee shops and gastropubs. Another London area, Newington Green, was also named among the country’s ‘coolest’ areas – read more about that here.
Beyond the cities, the list also features Hope Cove in Devon for its water-sports and ‘excellent running trails’ and Tongue in the Scottish Highlands for its wildlife and remoteness. You can see the Sunday Times’ full list of ‘it’ places here.
Did you see that these are officially Britain’s best artisan bakeries?
Plus: this English town hall has had a spectacular glow-up.
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