Strange findings by Halifax Bank

Bewilderment and consternation was the reaction amongst some locally to the news that Audlem had not made it into the top hundred places to live in Britain, according to the Halifax Bank.

Hart in Hampshire has been crowned the most desirable place to live in Britain for the third year in succession in a quality of life survey.

The annual Halifax data takes into account a wide range of factors including health and life expectancy, crime rates, weather, employment and the performance of local schools.

Sadly, the North of England hardly gets a look in with just two Yorkshire areas in the top 100. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland fare even worse with just one area, the Orkneys, creeping in at number 100.

The findings are in marked contrast to the last time, in 2005, that government department Defra put all of England's top villages – those that had been voted best in each county -together in a competition to find the single best community in the country. The national winner: Audlem!

Closer examination of the Halifax findings reveals the reason Audlem, or indeed Hankelow which was Cheshire village of the year in 2012, fail to make the grade.

Halifax base their findings on local authority area, hence Audlem is lumped in with the likes of Crewe and Macclesfield which, while delightful in many ways, may have distorted the overall result. Cheshire East is however, the best local authority area to live in the North West region, albeit coming in as only the 105th best area nationally.

Cheshire East, as a Unitary Authority, is very large by local authority standards and inevitably includes a very mixed bag of communities. It is, however, surprising however how few northern areas make it into the Halifax's top 100 list, particularly for a Bank with its origins in Yorkshire.

Maybe it's the weather that counts against us.

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