Channel4's Places to Live.

[TheAnimus]

http://www.channel4bestandworst.com/

in case you don't know, each year they do some crude rankings of borughs to determine the best and worst places in the uk to live. Using critira like life expectancy, GCSE pass rates and crime stats.

So how do you think they failed

I don't disagree with much of what they said, only the large area of survey. Take where my parents insainly moved too Carrick.

Falmouth is nice enough, no real employment, house prices way above average wage, good few pubs and restraunts. It deserves to rank highly....

Newquay on the other hand does not. Newquay is a scum infested sink hole, with very low educational standards (hey, my dislexia for years went un-diagnosed because i spelt/wrote better than most). Employement is non existant, too many people are employed in seasonal work, this skews too many employement stats as most wont have jobs for the winter, this in my mind is so arcain it belongs in victorian times.... or mabye wales. Crime goes massivly un-reported, lots of holiday makers loose their wallet/watch/mobile and don't report it, simply because they where drunk/drugs at the time. Rape/violent assault is again rife, often un-reported because people don't recall how it happened (the stories friends who work at the 18-30 hotels can tell!). My point is, its a stupid aborent place to live. 18-30 has its holiday value, but to live, you have to be stupid. All shops are chains and targeted at tourists who wont be there in 2 weeks to complain about the service, theres no cinema/theatre/culture.

Their stats fail to slam places like this enough, this is my complaint.

Milton Keynes... Nah just kidding, its just dull, dosent deserve to be in the bottom 20, thought you might like to know i think that.

[alsenior]

my whole farking county is number 3 in the chart

the whole friggin county. im sure it is not that bad there are a few rough spots mostly in grimsby

but at least were one above hull again

[TheAnimus]

Should point out, i live in Barnet, so not really good or bad enough to be intresting.

My parents live in carrick which did under their stats quite well. Even thou the end they live at is a **** hole, thats miles away from a good bit (10+ miles).

[IBM]

I watched the last 30 mins, just expecting to see Sunderland in the top ten. And it wasn't! I was very suprised, it was number two in Sh*tTown. Middlesbrough's a hole, but I've been to worse.

Their logic didn't really pan out a lot of the time. Nottingham was really high on the worst list, all because of the crime rate, discarding the pretty good town centre, theatres, museums, cinemas, restaurants, good employment and reasonable housing prices.....daft.

You wonder if any backhanders were involved

[schmunk]

What, England's Mayfair, only 13th? 'Pah' I say, I demand a recount.

[TheAnimus]

Originally Posted by schmunk

What, England's Mayfair, only 13th? 'Pah' I say, I demand a recount.

I Write this in Mayfair right now.

Don't live here, you'd be a fool too. Enless your on the right street of course.

Its overpriced, full of homeless people, and worse still tourists. But what really sickons me is how few people take care of the buildings, go round belgravia and the amount of incredibly expensive buildings that desperately need a lick of paint is insaine.

[colincliff]

Originally Posted by schmunk

What, England's Mayfair, only 13th? 'Pah' I say, I demand a recount.

I think he means St Albans. Nice place, too near Hatfield tho

[Merlin4458]

epsom and ewell 3rd

[Nick]

I thought a lot of it was decidedly 'odd' and some of their reasoning was downright spurious.

For example, the number 8 best place to live (I think it was number 8, can't remember the name) had violent crime and robberies running way above the national average and GSCE pass rates weren't particularly brilliant either...

But Mansfield, five minutes down the road from me, was 9th worst place to live because of obesity and smoking bringing the overall health of the area down. Their other 'down' point was education...

So smoking and obesity which I can do something about for my personal health are worse than high rates of violent crime and robbery which I can do little about? And as for education, their figures MUST be out of date as a quick search on UpMyStreet shows nearly all the schools in the area are within a few percent of the national average... In fact, the three major senior schools have all undergone massive regeneration and investment with one school being completely demolished and a brand new one being built in its place... hardly a sign of education neglect...

I also liked the fact that they showed the very worst areas of their 'worst' towns.

Mansfield has a large and busy town centre with just about every major chain and loads of small independents... there's even a market twice a week, but did they show that? No, they show some rundown wasteland and boarded terraced housing which is actually about to undergo redevelopment to provide cheaper local housing for first time buyers.

To be honest, I thought the show was a complete sham and the Phil and Kirsty have just blown their credibility out of the window.

It was a typical case of dress up the stats to show the picture you want.

Of COURSE people in affluent areas are going to be earning more, that's why the area is affluent! And of course their life expectancy is going to be greater, they can afford private health care, and of course the education standards amongst those people will be higher, they went to Uni and got themselves a high-paid job off the back of their qualifications...

Yes, it wound me up somewhat as I found Phil and Kirsty's conclusions to be suspicious in the extreme and their weighting on what topics they thought were good and bad was also extremely doubtful.

Carbon emissions? Oh yes, that's ALWAYS influenced ME when I buy a house... you wouldn't catch me moving into an area like that... sod house prices, rail and road links and local schools, if the emissions are up I'm outta there.

Idiots.

[Rishi]

I recently saw this article LINK

Cheltenham not even in the Top 20 for the Channel 4 one, but is number 1 in my link

[ACiD303]

Edinburgh #1!

That's actually unbelievable, as much as I think it is one of the world's most beautiful cities and has history to boot, there are plenty of places in Edinburgh where you just don't set foot in.

Edinburgh is also one of the most ridiculously overpriced cities, for what it is (other cities are more expensive but for what you get it's not bad), ever as well - ignoring what the Article says about it being "cheap".

That said, Edinburgh during the summer is unrivalled - even better if the Sun shows its face!

It's a deserved #1, but when you consider the other places in the UK for actually living, not just visiting, there's really not that much competition IMO. I guess it depends on what you look for in a city for living.

I'm not sure why they awarded 4/5 to Edinburgh and 5/5 to Aberdeen and didn't crown that as best place.

[Funkstar]

They gave Aberdeen 5/5?????

Why?

I love my city, but i wouldn't expect it to get 5/5.

[tigerboyce]

Yay west oxfordshire 5/5

[Whiternoise]

I like Islington.. everywhere has it's bits where you don't go after the lights go out, but for the most part it's a great place IMO.

[IBM]

Sunderland got 4/5!!!????

WTF!!!???

I'm speechless

[kidzer]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

They gave Aberdeen 5/5?????

Why?

I love my city, but i wouldn't expect it to get 5/5.

The City seems to get 4/5 when I check it out?

Us shire folks on t'other hand, we get 5/5, I dont beleive we should, but we do