Do you love where you live? Or do you dream of escaping it every day? Or perhaps you just don’t think that deeply into it.
Regardless, every year Rightmove conducts a survey of tens of thousands of Brits to discover how happy, or not, they are with the places they live for its Happy at Home Index. This year, Rightmove discovered that Woodbridge is the UK’s most pleasant town to live in, but, of course, the index also uncovered places the public isn’t so fond of.
To find out the happiest and saddest of the country, Rightmove surveyed 35,000 people on their feelings about their hometowns, including how they’d rank the community spirit, access to services like schools and hospitals, and quality of green spaces. Based on those results, every town gets a number and then ranked in order, so if a place has scored poorly, it’s because its own residents had negative things to say.
There are some spots which always seem to be the butt of the joke, but according to Rightmove, sometimes there’s a reason for that. Coming dead last, and officially the most miserable place to live in Britain right now, was Slough.
Most famous for being the aggressively grey setting of the original UK seasons of The Office, it’s not a huge surprise that Slough isn’t a very happy place. Although we’re sure it has its pros – such as excellent transport links – the people have spoken, and they don’t like this town. Who are we to disagree with the will of the people?
The worst part is that Slough isn’t even cheap: an average house will set you back £411,000. In its defence, that is a lot less than you’d pay in neighbouring London, but it still isn’t exactly a cracking bargain when you consider how unhappy the town’s population is. Last year Slough was also named the ugliest place in the UK, though it was also crowned London’s best commuter town.
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Second to last was Bradford, followed by the London borough of Barking & Dagenham (find out more about the London boroughs low down in the study here). At least houses are a lot less expensive in Bradford, at only £182,000, so you’ll get better value for your money there. Silver linings, eh?
The only major city to find itself in the bottom ten was Birmingham, which was also named worst regional accent by Tinder earlier this week. The Brummies just can’t catch a break, it seems.
Every place has its good and bad parts, so we’re sure that Slough isn’t as bad as some might say. Maybe next year it’ll surprise us all and end up in Rightmove’s top 10 places to live. Only time will tell.
On the market with Time Out
If you’re looking to move sometime soon, it’s probably wise to give Slough a miss this time. Instead, check out this brand-new town with 6,000 homes is being built in Oxfordshire and in London, or have a look here, where plans have been announced for a riverside town in Barking, complete with 20,000 homes. If that doesn’t take your fancy, three UK cities have been crowned the best in the world and this is the happiest place to live in the UK.
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