Wychavon in Worcestershire named one of best places to live in UK

According to research from Halifax, the Worcestershire district - which is home to towns including Evesham, Pershore and Droitwich - is the third-best place to live, after Winchester and the Orkney Islands in Scotland.

The Malvern Hills also made the list, coming in at number 24.

The study considered a range of factors to pin point the places with the best quality of life, including life expectancy, health, employment rates, crime, education, broadband access, population densities and the weather.

Nearly two-thirds of the top 50 best places to live in the UK are in southern England, according to Halifax's study.

Hart in the South East of England - a former winner in Halifax's annual quality of life study over the past five years - fell to number 26 in the 2016 survey.

Halifax said one reason for this was the inclusion of two new categories in its research - the number of pubs and the availability of health clubs and leisure centres.

Other figures the research revealed include:

• The highest weekly average earnings were in Kensington and Chelsea in London at £1,273 per week.
• The lowest average annual rainfall, at 525mm, was in Castle Point in Essex.
• The sunniest place in the UK was the Isle of Wight where residents enjoyed an average of 36.9 hours of sunshine a week, above the national average of 29.7 hours per week.
• The biggest homes were in Uttlesford in Essex, Chiltern, South Buckinghamshire and Rutland, which all had an average of just over six habitable rooms.
• The smallest homes were in the City of London, Tower Hamlets, and Westminster, which all typically had less than four habitable rooms. The average number of habitable rooms in the UK was 5.5.
• Eden in Cumbria had the highest number of pubs per 10,000 adults, at 28.3, followed by Derbyshire Dales, at 26.7, against a national average of 10.1.
• Cornwall came out on top when looking at the total number of pubs in a local authority, with around 620 to choose from.