EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Free discussion Most Liveable City

I suppose the answer to that one is that we all are.

Wasn't it the great Paul Weller who said "The public wants what the public get"?

The great Paul Weller? Not the bloke who invented the soldering iron?

What's a soldering iron?

I'm just a board changer these days mate!

Once learned, never forgotten!

Don't forget Mr. Winstanleys contribution.

I remember we were made to solder a cube using some copper wires and see for ourselves as they fell without additional helping hands. But today there is really not much of the skill needed to do soldering. Most of the time we just needed to be a good board changer, the one who diagnose the actual defective board.

The results of a recent study by the Halifax lists the "top ten" in the UK as:-

1) Elmbridge (in Surrey)
2) Mid-Suffolk (quite a large area)!
3) Horsham (in West Sussex)
4) Wokingham (Berkshire)
5) Hart (Hampshire)
6) Surrey Heath (is that a place?)
7) Rochford (Essex)
8) Uttlesford (Essex)
9) Three Rivers (Hertfordshire)
10) South Cambridgshire

Nowhere outside the South-East or East of England ranked in the top twenty, and the best area in the whole of northern England (that is, according to the survey), Castle Morpeth in Northumberland, was 61st on the list! I'm not sure what the criteria the judges were applying ... "posh" by the sound of it! Needless to say, those are places a little outside of my orbit!

Aren't these lists usually made up by residence of boring little towns that nobody else would really want to live in?

Surely city design and leisure facilities come into it. There's some towns and cities that are soo poorly designed that I swear they just exist to extract parking and speeding fines from the average motorist and the only joy they provide is a good feeling when you leave them.

... like the feeling I always gets when heading out away from London, you mean?

If you study the Halifax list carefully, I think you'll find that the main criteria must have been wealth (as is, where the millionaires live)!

Don't forget that most British towns and cities were not designed as such, but rather evolved over the centuries. And, looking at those that were supposedly designed (Milton Keynes, Welwyn, Harlow etc. in England, plus Cumbernauld, Livingston, Irvine in Scotland) ... well, would you say they are any better?

Bristol's not too bad, though, is it?

... London just how many traffic junction cameras do you need in a 1000 yard stretch! Although there are other cities and towns where unlike Bristol driving takes a lot of concentration due to road design, I can only assume they like roundabouts in Milton Keynes?

It does seem that some planning in some cities has been done in a sloppy manner, just think of Bradley Stoke, it's only recently that it's finally got local facilities. Where as the new Cabot Circus complex was so well planned that the lack of traffic problems on their first day of opening was a welcome embarrassment.

Harvey Nichols claimed that Bristol was one of the best places to live, no prizes for guessing where the other six was It was also claimed to be the greenest city in England (in the days before green was associated with the enviroment) Last time I checked it had the largest urban fox population and apparently your never more than 20 yards from someone who'll tell you your never 20 yards from a rat and if Bristol's good for the rats who can argue!