According to the Halifax Building Society , Rochford District has the 24th best ‘quality of life’ in the UK. That’s pretty good , out of 405 local authority areas….
You can download their full press release here.
Having said that, the Halifax presumably do this to generate a bit of publicity for themselves. The criteria they have used to judge each district are the criteria they have chosen. On their system, areas score highly for:
High employment rate.
High average number of rooms in each house.
High percentage of houses with central heating
Low ratio of house prices to earnings
High percentage of households with access to good broadband
Low population density
Low burglary rate
Low percentage of vacant properties
Low level of consumer CO2 emissions per household
Low average rainfall
High amount of sunshine
High percentage of people in good health
Long life expectancy at birth for males
Low class sizes at primary schools
High percentage of 15 year olds with at least 5 GCSEs levels A-C
It doesn’t cover anything like being close to national parks, or the seaside, or other amenities. It also doesn’t include the life expectancy of females.
The results have come out very much slanted towards southern and south-eastern England. The best placed authority in the north of England is Northumberland, coming 162nd! You’d think that places in the Lake District, or a spa town like Harrogate, would do better.
The best placed in Scotland is the Shetland Islands, in 98th….
The Sun’s view on this is here and the Telegraph’s is here. The Newcastle-based Journal writes about it here.