People in southern England enjoy a higher quality of life than those in northern regions of the UK according to new research.
Areas in southern England scored strongly in the Halifax survey with 28 out of the top 30 local authorities that offer the best quality of life being in southern England.
Places in the South East accounted for 19 of the top 30 local authorities for quality of life, while there were six in the east of England, two in London and one in the South West.
No local authorities in Scotland made it into the top 100, with Aberdeenshire the highest-ranked area at 153rd.
Having lived all over England I wouldn't return to live in many parts unless it was a matter of life or death. Why would I want to go back to a pace of life which induces high stress levels, sitting in endless traffic jams, having my car clamped, dirty streets, police who never appear when called, neighbours who never say hello, doctors who don't do home visits and few hills to break the flat landscape. The list goes on.
Yes I know many small communities are not like that but the way of life in the south east of England isn't my cup of tea. It's a delight to visit friends there but always more delightful to return to my geriatric paradise here in Scotland. Don't dare say I'm getting old!
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24 comments:
SR,
I'm forced to live here, hate it and land locked. Very little positive to say about the place. People are filled with their own self importance, all hail Londistan could go on but there's enough negativity doing the rounds!
CD
Hope you're saving fur yer hoose in the Hielands CD, they're just about the same price as they are down there. Mind you a bit further south they're cheaper. :)
I work with an English gentleman who claims to be the Chairman of the Campaign to reunite East Lothian with England. I've agreed to support his claim subject to his recognising that Cumbria used to be part of Strathclyde. They get East Lothian; we get the Lake District. Apart from any other advantages, I'd then have had two Scottish parents instead of one.
Let the Saltire fly from the Moot Hall in Keswick...
Ah David what a compromising gentleman you are. I would consider that's quite a Campaign. Can I join?
http://tinyurl.com/yb5ppb4
Published Date: 20 December 2009
By Tom Peterkin
CHARLIE Chaplin, Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster were all well aware of its many charms before it faded as a holiday destination.
But the resort of Nairn, on the Moray coast, is about to undergo an extraordinary resurrection after being voted the second-most favoured global destination for 2010.
Head for Nairn, where men are men and sheep are nervous.
Each to his own I suppose.
Would be interested to know, by what criteria the Halifax judges ‘quality of life’.
Here in the Highlands the quality of life, I would argue, is second to none.
Please take note CD, I’m sure you would love it here and would be made most welcome, there is opportunity for anyone to do anything, and no one should ever feel ‘forced’ to live in any location. For your information, today, the Highlands look just like your sig picture.
Yes a visit to the supermarket is a 15mile round trip, but one has to balance that against, for example, today, watching the deer, from ones kitchen window, foraging in the snow. Another example of quality of life, whilst out walking the dog across the fields today I called in to see my neighbours, they too were out, but I knew I was sufficiently welcome to walk in and put the kettle on, for their return from their walk.
Sorry, but there is no way in God’s earth that I would move south to live in Englandshire.
p.s. Must second what KBW says about sunny Nairn.
Nae sheep here these days KBW. They did away with sheep hill farming 20 years ago and now the best sheep are reared in Australia or New Zealand.
I know you're going to ask me why they know how to do it. The Scottish farmers emigrated. Another destruction of a very productive industry.
In fact I just put my order into the butcher on Thursday and asked for lamb chops. He said "They're not ours, they come from NZ".
Now I don't blame the Ozzies or NZlanders for seeing a great substainable market and especially welcoming our most qualified and experienced hill farmers in the least.
It's slightly depressing to see hills, which were covered by sheep when I was young, to be bare though.
I live in the South-East of England and it's really not too bad, at least there's work. Yes traffic is a problem as a lot here commute to London and yes it can seem a bit odd to those who live elsewhere. But for me a guy originally from Newcastle it's not bad at all, I'd certainly never go home again.
Subrosa: the Campaign to liberate the Lakes, I presume? OK for that one.
My colleague doesn't seem to have dealt with the Berwickshire question. It's just East Lothian he goes on about. Perhaps he envisages a Coldstream Corridor to connect with the rest of England. I don't like the historical precedents of that one...
Also, I'm not sure if he's realised that he might have to show his passport every time he enters Portobello on the way to work. If his campaign succeeds I'll be buying a pub in Musselburgh to take advantage of Salmond's minimum pricing plans for alcohol. The queues at the border will rival those at Tijuana!
Hmm, sheep in the Highlands; now there would be an interesting subject for the discussion I'm thinking. Was it not for the sheep that the people were displaced? I have ever understood that the kine were the preferred beasts of the Highlander.
Tcheuchter:
That's right, the sheep were much more productive for the land owner than the wee crofters' rents, I guess. Right about the Kine too. I'd forgotten that word. Thanks for reminding me.
I'd like to know by what yardsticks they measure satisfaction or quality of life. I think I'd rather watch the deer than the traffic jam, even if I couldn't readily get to Sainsbury.
I'm good at making do!
A chaqu’un son gout.
John I thought that too but then decided not to mention it in the post in case I sounded as if I was too pro-Scottish. :)
John CD actually comes from Aberdeenshire so he knows north of Edinburgh very well. It's his work which places him where they will.
Auch John, like you, I don't mind a wee trip out to the big supermarkets, although I've a small one hear which I won't mention, because I detest their monopoly.
You're more rural than me John. I've noticed since I came here nearly 20 years ago that we've adopted English habits about not 'cold calling' and certainly nobody would ever leave their front doors open or cars.
May I qualify that last sentence by saying "nobody in their right mind would leave..."
It has been known here. I left my car a few years ago. I confess it wasn't an occasional occurrence. In the morning there was a light on the dashboard telling me my boot was opened but I drove onto work regardless. In my half-asleep state I'd also noticed the driver's seat had been pushed back but thought it was the 'other driver' who was responsible.
The police phoned me at work to ask if my car had been used during the night. I explained what I knew and it seems the thieves used my car to 'hide out' from the police. If it hadn't been open then they may have used force to open it.
As it was not even a tape was missing. I was lucky I know that but since then I always ensure my car is locked, for no other reason than if I don't do that, then the insurance is invalid.
Just a piece of useless information about East Lothian. Lothian, in celtic mythology a twilight land of the dead, was (allegedly) Tolkien's model for Lothlorien, the forest of the elves, in Lord of the Rings. I wonder if that makes England Mordor? Actually I lived for a little while in Cheshire as a child and started school there. I have very happy memories of the place, and recently revisited. I went to my old school and they allowed me a tour even though classes were in session. They let me check through school records of the time, including the discipline book. How times have changed! In all my time there (a couple of years) only one serious incident was recorded in the book. Such innocent times! This was in the early 50s.
In spite of many good memories I wouldn't want to live there - a few years ago I resigned from a job I loved to avoid moving to Staffordshire.
Life in the Marches is very special.
Some parts of Cheshire are pleasant and it's rather an upmarket area now I think Vronsky. Like you I decided not to return south to work. Never had a day's regret either.
Ah yes OR a wee bit of heaven there. Thankfully it hasn't changed much since I left 20+ years ago.
subrosa,
I was going to move to the Western Isles as I work from home but now I hear Kilmarnock calling. Ah well ...
Nothing wrong with Kilmarnock brownlie. RantinRab would support that.
And you're near enough there to campaign for Cathy. ;)
There's nothing wrong with Kilmarnock that an atomic bomb wouldn't cure. The only good thing with all this snow some of them might get a wash. Then they might be able to visit Ayr for their Christmas shop-lifting. I would live in the Nairn area if I had the possibility and didn't have elderly parents-in-law to look after. The weather is fabulous in that wee neuk east of Inverness. P.S. Rab's actually living in Kilmarnock under protest, he's an Ardrossan man.
Oh dearie me, not a lot of lurv for Kilmarnock around. :)
Nairn is lovely, just a wee bit far from friends and family for me DL, but it is lovely up there.
I knew Rab wasn't a born and bred Kilmarnockian but had forgotten where exactly. Ardrossan, with the poshest of council hooses on the seafront. Lucky lad.
The Lake District is not known as Cwmbria for nothing.
These surveys of the quality of life usually include things like the number and milage of cycleways, the % of rubbish that gets recycled and the number of licensed burger vans that offer tofu products; ie pc stuff that few of us actually care about.
My quality of life in London was greatly enhanced by the then ready access to numerous Punk gigs, I don't suppose the Halifax included that in their survey.
However,, Londons traffic and people congestion finally got to me and I contributed to solving it by fleeing to this little paradise that I think of as the last redoubt of the Elves before the orcs overwhelm it too.
And it isn't even snowing.
Dark Lochnagar,
There is nothing wrong with Kilmarnock that my Cathy will not address and rectify.
London in the 60s was marvellous banned, a great city for the young. It possibly still is a great city but it's just too busy for me now.
The Lake District is lovely, but it too is packed.
It's the overpopulation of so many areas that's the problem. Now who encouraged that?
No snow here either, slightly warmer even I think.
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