Happiest Place in England

Cheshire East has been named as the happiest place to live in England

It polled a fantastic fifth place in the whole of the UK in the Office for National Statistics' happiness survey -- and was placed number one outside Scotland.

People living in the Western Isles in Scotland are on average the happiest in the UK, according to a major Whitehall study.

An analysis based on a survey of more than 300,000 people across Britain by the Office for National Statistics found East Cheshire was only pipped to the title of happiest place to live in Britain by three Scottish island regions and the Scottish Highlands.

The study, carried out by the Office for National Statistics, asked people to rate their happiness on a scale of one to 10 in the three-year study between 2012-2015, with 0-4 classed as 'low' and 9-10 as 'very high'.

Cheshire East's national recognition in this survey is not the first plaudit for the Borough:

Cheshire East has already been named 'Best in the North West' two years running and has a number of notable 'firsts' and high placings, both nationally and in the region:

• Best place to live in the North West, two years running (Halifax Quality of Life survey);
• Cheshire East's schools are the second best in England (ranking based on performance in Ofsted inspections);
• First local authority to supply energy direct to the public since gas and electricity were nationalised in 1948. This Fairerpower scheme has saved residents more than £1m in total since its launch in March 2015;
• Cheshire is 'best place' in country for starting up a rural business (CLA report);
• Best place to start a family -- Bollington (PropertyDetective.com report);
• Best place to both start and raise a family -- Poynton (PropertyDetective.com report);
• Best in the North West for our low Neets (Not in employment, education or training) figure for youngsters;
• Local Authority Adoption Service of the Year in 2013/14 -- as part of Four4Adoption collaboration;
• One of the fastest rollouts of superfast broadband in the country -- taking provision to 96 per cent by the end of 2015 -- and aiming for 98 per cent by 2017;
• 18,000+ businesses -- more per head than even Manchester Council.

AudlemOnline adds: Now the task is to find the best place in Cheshire East. Curiously, Audlem pretty well swept the board at the Cheshire awards evening in late 2015 – and that covered all of Cheshire, not just Cheshire East.

All in all, we must stand a good chance of being the best of the best. Well, it's always good to dream!

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