Good Broadband Helps Fuel Halifax’s UK Top 50 Best Places to Live

Halifax has published their fifth annual Quality of Life Survey, which reveals the top 50 best places to live (living standards) in the United Kingdom by looking at local health, employment, housing, education, personal well-being, crime rates, weather and of course broadband Internet connectivity etc.

As usual the study used data collected from various sources to score each area, although they don’t name any of those sources and sadly we’re not given a full run-down of the individual results. In terms of Internet connectivity, the study appears to struggle with its definition of “good” and “superfast” broadband.

Halifax’s Approach to Broadband

“80% of local area districts households have access to superfast broadband, i.e. where download speed is greater than 2 megabits per second (Mbps). They include several areas in Greater Manchester (such as Manchester and Trafford), York, and Ards in Northern Ireland. Across all areas of the UK the majority of households have a good level of broadband access (i.e. a download speed of 2Mbps is regarded as the minimum for good broadband service).”

Some of the best local authority districts for broadband connectivity were found to be Manchester (North West), York (Yorkshire and the Humber), Southend-on-Sea (East of England), Brent (London), Woking (South East) and Ards (Northern Ireland).

Otherwise Hart in North East Hampshire (England) has once again topped the table and is thus one of the best places to live, thanks to scoring highly across a range of categories.

On average, inhabitants of Hart were found to be the healthiest in the UK and the area also benefits from a high employment rate (84.5% have jobs), low crime (e.g. 9.5 burglaries per 10,000 people) and lots of sunshine. But local property prices are more expensive, naturally.