CUMBRIA is a county famed throughout the world for its outstanding natural scenery, its iconic visitor attractions, magnificent history and farming heritage.
Yet our City and towns appear to have not made the coveted UK Best Places to Live rankings in a recent survey.
The criteria for the ranking is based on 12 measures covering four categories including physical environment, quality of life, architecture/heritage and going green.
Bath retained its spot at the top, but the list predominately features areas in the Southwest. Cumbria does not feature in the top listing.
Caton in Lancashire is the closest to Cumbria in the top 10 and the only area in the Northwest.
Carlisle was one of the higher-ranking areas in Cumbria, placing 40th out of 1372 other areas. The breakdown of scores for Carlisle include 194th for architectural beauty rank which was the best rank in the four categories. The green rank was the lowest score at 450th. However, Carlisle scored 6th out of 661 for the price band category.
Brampton’s ranking shows the stark difference, a quick journey down the road can make to the overall ranking as it is placed 549th overall.
Another local area, Whitehaven, scored 162nd out of 1372. Whitehaven’s best score was also architecture at 299th. The lowest score was quality of life at 599th. Over the bypass, Workington’s overall rank was 225th, their quality-of-life rank made it into the top 100 scoring 95th. However, the natural beauty rank hindered their ranking scoring at748th.
Some of the areas within the Lake District produced more shocking results. Windermere placed 758th in the list.
However, natural beauty only scored 271 which conflicts other research reports into the area. The Daffodil Hotel conducted research into the Lake District’s most popular (and most Instagrammable) lake walks and fell walks and Windermere came out on top.
The research showed that there were 1,661,476 combined searches and hashtags of the area. Surely the perfect Instagram snap is evidence enough of its natural beauty!
Keswick highlighted the disparity between marks and the difference it can make to a towns overall rank.
Keswick scored 299th overall, yet its natural beauty rank featured in the top 10, placing 6.
However, a common denominator for Cumbrian towns was a low quality-of-life rank, as Keswick achieved 1336th.
Penrith placed at 401 on the list, however it did not follow the same trend that was witnessed in Cumbria. Both quality-of-life and natural beauty did not place particularly high at 1340th and 594th, the green rank at 99th was the best scorer for Penrith.
Despite Penrith’s transport links, and proximity to the Lake District, the scores were low compared to the South East.
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