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Once a year, the Sunday Times takes it upon itself to declare which areas of the UK are the best to live in. To be named among the crème de la crème, places must have charm, a strong independent spirit, a good community, enviable infrastructure and top-class schools.
A total of 72 villages, towns, boroughs and cities made the final list. The city of Norwich was crowned the overall best place to live in the UK (read more on why here), but the paper also chose winners for each of the country’s 11 regions. Was your hometown among them?
In the southeast of England, the village of Lindfield in West Sussex took the top spot for its ‘aspirational’ high street, its community events calendar (from a fancy dress beer race to a summer pizza gathering) and its huge common. The picturesque and culturally rich Malverns were crowned the best place to live in the Midlands and, a little further north, Malmesbury in Wiltshire, with its magnificent abbey, local pride and creative spaces, earned first place for the southeast.
To the east, Manningtree in Essex was number one thanks to its beautiful waterways, artsy spaces and nearby high-achieving grammar schools. In London, Richmond was named the most desirable place to live and described as the ‘most serene corner of the capital’. But you’ll need around £900,000 to spare in order to get an average house there.
Up north, ‘classy, cool and comfortable’ Altrincham in Greater Manchester was crowned the best place to live in the northwest and Skipton in North Yorkshire, the happiest place in Britain, was named the best for the northeast.
If you want to settle down in Wales, the Times says that Usk in Monmouthshire is the place to go. It’s home to an environmentally-conscious community who have planted flowers throughout the town and campaigned for a £10 million wastewater upgrade to combat river pollution. It’s also an easy 33 minutes to Cardiff by train.
As for Scotland, Linlithgow, a ‘family-friendly haven’ between Edinburgh and Glasgow was named the best place to live. It’s home to a mixture of medieval and modern architecture, a bookshop which organises West Lothian’s only book festival, a record shop, a wine bar, several ‘excellent’ coffee shops and beloved annual cardboard boat race down the canal. In Northern Ireland, Ballycastle on the Causeway Coast was the winner thanks to its lively pub scene, creative calendar and ‘fiercely proud’ personality. It’s the most affordable place in the top 10 with an average house price of £252,300.
The best place to live in every region of the UK, according to the Sunday Times
- Southeast: Lindfield, West Sussex
- London: Richmond
- East: Norwich, Norfolk (overall winner)
- Southwest: Malmesbury, Wiltshire
- Midlands: The Malverns, Worcestershire
- Northwest: Altrincham, Greater Manchester
- North and northeast: Skipton, North Yorkshire
- Wales: Usk, Monmouthshire
- Scotland: Linlithgow, West Lothian
- Northern Ireland: Ballycastle, County Antrim
The full list of the Sunday Times’ best places to live in Britain
This is the newspaper’s full list, in alphabetical order.
- Aberfeldy, Perthshire
- Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
- Aigburth, Liverpool
- Altrincham, Greater Manchester
- Amersham, Buckinghamshire
- Anglesey
- Ballycastle, County Antrim
- Bedford, Bedfordshire
- Bermondsey to Waterloo (SE1), London
- Bournville, Birmingham
- Bow (E3), London
- Braemar, Aberdeenshire
- Bridport, Dorset
- Cambridge
- Caversham, Reading
- Chelmsford, Essex
- Cookham, Berkshire
- Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan
- Crickhowell, Powys
- Crouch End (N8), London
- Dartmoor, Devon
- Deal, Kent
- Didsbury, Cumbria
- Dollar, Clackmannanshire
- Dundrum, County Down
- East Linton, East Lothian
- Eden Valley, Cumbria
- Exmouth, Devon
- Falmouth and Penryn, Cornwall
- Fulham (SW6), London
- Gosforth, Newcastle
- Hathersage, Derbyshire
- Howardian Hills, North Yorkshire
- Kingsdown, Bristol
- Lancaster, Lancashire
- Leeds (city centre)
- Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire
- Lindfield, West Sussex
- Linlithgow, West Lothian
- Macclesfield, Cheshire
- Malmesbury, Wiltshire
- The Malverns, Worcestershire
- Manningtree, Essex
- Market Harborough, Leicestershire
- Melrose, Scottish Borders
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
- Morpeth, Northumberland
- Newhaven, Edinburgh
- Norwich, Norfolk
- Ormeau, Belfast
- Petersfield, Hampshire
- Petworth, West Sussex
- Plumstead (SE18), London
- Pontcanna, Cardiff
- Richmond (TW9 and TW10), London
- Saffron Walden, Essex
- Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Yorkshire
- Scotstoun, Glasgow
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
- Skipton, North Yorkshire
- Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire
- St Leonards, East Sussex
- Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
- Stroud, Gloucestershire
- Surrey Hills
- Test Valley, Hampshire
- Usk, Monmouthshire
- Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire
- Walthamstow (E17), London
- Wimborne Minster, Dorset
- Woodbridge, Suffolk
- York
You can read the full feature on the Times website here.
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