Astonishment as city ranked least happiest place in the UK

Published on Thursday 28 August 2008 10:44

EDINBURGH has been named as the most miserable place to live in the United Kingdom – despite its beautiful scenery, countless leisure and cultural attractions and recent economic success.

In a new study by university researchers, the Capital occupies bottom spot out of 273 locations across the country.

Each place was ranked by the level of happiness enjoyed by their residents.

Nearby West Lothian came third highest for happiness, while Edinburgh was also outdone by Glasgow, which came in at 111th place.

Academics from Sheffield and Manchester universities came up with the misery index as part of their attempts to find the underlying causes of happiness.

Factors such as age income, health and physical surroundings were taken into account as part of the study.

This latest research contradicts a survey by leading polling agency Mori in 2006 which found only three places – Northumberland, the Isle of Man and St Albans in Hertfordshire – with happier residents than Edinburgh.

Dimitris Ballas, of the University of Sheffield, was reported as saying: "We have tried to determine to what extent place matters.

"Happiness is particularly difficult for a scientist to measure. There's a lot of lively debate on what is the most appropriate measure."

He added: "This is the first time, in Britain at least, that there has been an attempt to take geography into account.

"The difference between areas is very small. A lot of the difference is down to the make-up of the people living there, not just the area."

Commenting on Edinburgh's position, he added: "It means people are less happy than we would expect them to be. Maybe miserable would be the right word."

Researchers based their findings on over 5000 responses from the annual British Household Panel Survey.

Factors including climate hours of sunshine, noise and air pollution were all taken into account in the study – which found that people in the county of Powys in Wales came at the top of the contentment chart.

Councillor Andrew Burns, the city's labour leader, thinks most people in the city would find the research results odd. He said: "This is very surprising. It is certainly not a description of Edinburgh I recognise.

"I am not originally from Edinburgh, I came to the city 15 years ago and I have always found it to be a lively and vibrant place to live and work in. I was at an event for the Mela last night, and what this research is saying does not square with what was going on there."

Back in 2006, the Mori poll findings showed that 96 per cent of people who lived in the centre of the Capital were satisfied that they had everything around them they needed to enjoy life.

The close proximity of a range of top restaurants, bars, shops and galleries, along with magnificent views, walks and parks, clearly outweighed the potential downsides of city centre life, such as possible noise problems, crowded streets and a lack of parking spaces.

Last year, Edinburgh was voted the second best city to visit in the UK by Conde Nast magazine.