Warrington’s got its “Zen” as one of the best places to live!

NEW research has again shown Warrington as one of the best places to live in the UK!

Scoring well across the board in a special “Zen” lifestyle survey, Warrington has earned its place as one of the most chilled places to live in the country.

SupplementPlace used ONS data to find how 50 of the UK’s highest populated towns and cities rank for quality of life factors such as happiness, life satisfaction and anxiety.
Warrington ranks 3rd for “Zen” and joint 2nd with Bournemouth for highest life satisfaction, just behind top-placed Reading.

Stress and anxiety are often unavoidable parts of daily life. Whether you’re worrying about work, family events, relationships, or even big global issues, being able to effectively deal with your stress is vital for your personal wellbeing.

1. Bournemouth – 7.72/10 Zen Score
In first place, claiming the title of the UK’s Zen Capital is Bournemouth, with a score of 7.72 in our zen city index. With so many fantastic beaches within reach, it’s no wonder that the residents of Bournemouth are the most chilled-out in the country. The town is also home to several public gardens, a delightful seafront, and the unmissable Bournemouth Pier.
Bournemouth did so well thanks to its high score for life satisfaction and coming top in the country for happiness, while at the same time scoring in the bottom 5 for anxiety levels. It must be all that sea air that keeps the locals so calm!
2. Reading – 7.14/10 Zen Score
Not far behind in second place is Reading, with a score of 7.14. This large Berkshire town is most widely known for the Reading Festival, one of the biggest festivals in the country. When the locals aren’t frequenting the mosh pit, they’re actually some of the most laid-back people you’ll come across.
Reading actually scored the highest in the country for life satisfaction and is also the place with the most searches for ‘yoga’ compared to its population!
3. Warrington – 6.9/10 Zen Score
The final podium place went to Warrington, claiming third place with a score of 6.9. Located in the North West of England, nestled between the major urban centres of Manchester and Liverpool, Warrington is an unassuming entrant to the list.
Methodology
SupplementPlace wanted to find out which towns and cities are the most chilled-out places in the UK, crowning the winner as the country’s “Zen Capital”.
To do this, they first built a list of the 50 UK towns and cities with the highest populations using official data sources.
Next, they used ONS data to find how well the locations on our list ranked for quality of life factors such as happiness, life satisfaction and anxiety.
They also used these figures to calculate the rate of change since the figures from five years ago, which were available in the same data set.
They also found the number of annual Google searches for several keywords which relate to the ideas of peacefulness, calm, and “zen”, using Google Ads Keyword Planner.
The keywords used were “green spaces”, “meditation”, “parks near me”, and “yoga”. Once we had the figures for each of these search terms, we divided the search volumes by the populations of each city to give a proportionate score.
Finally, we gave each town and city a normalised score out of ten for each factor, before taking an average score across all of the factors. This allowed us to produce an overall ranking and crown one location as the UK’s zen capital.
*Warrington is ranked as a city by size of population.