So far this year St Albans has been named as one of the Sunday Times’ best places to live in Britain, as well as an Evening Standard top 30 commuter town – and now it’s come fourth in a list of the UK’s most prosperous places to live.
The Legatum Institute’s UK Prosperity Index looked at wealth and well-being via a range of factors, including economic prosperity, education and the environment, promising to go “beyond traditional measures to give a rich picture of life in the UK”.
According to these stats, it really is grim up north, with Hull, Blackpool and Middlesborough taking the bottom three places – while the south east came out on top.
Surrey’s Waverley and Mole Valley took first and second place, followed by Winchester and the St Albans area, which includes Harpenden, Redbourn and Wheathampstead.
The national press went to town with the results, with the Daily Mail describing St Albans as “a unique English Cathedral City” and “buzzing metropolis” with “excellent attractions and interesting and ancient history”.
Other parts of Hertfordshire also scored highly in the index of 389 local areas – the Three Rivers – including Abbotts Langley and Rickmansworth – came 19th, followed by East Hertfordshire (Hertford and Ware) in 25th, North Hertfordshire (Hitchin, Letchworth and Knebworth) in 31st and Dacorum (Hemel and Tring) in 35th.
Welwyn Hatfield fared less well, coming in 112th place, while Stevenage came 180th - still a whopping 209 places ahead of Hull.
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