NI Named The UK's Happiest Place To Live

A new survey has revealed that Northern Ireland remains the happiest place to live in the United Kingdom.

The research, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), found that of the five happiest places in the UK, four are located in Northern Ireland.

They are Antrim, Fermanagh, Omagh and Dungannon, while Babergh in Suffolk also featured in the top five.

When it comes to the areas where the residents are 'least anxious', again Omagh and Antrim featured. Cookstown, however, was one place which was said to have one of the highest anxiety levels in the UK.

For the survey, 165,000 people were asked:

• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?

• Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?

• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

Participants were asked to give their answers on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being 'not at all', and 10 being 'completely'.

In its findings, the ONS said Northern Ireland was the only country where the average ratings for a sense that what one does in life is worthwhile (8.0), happiness (7.7) and anxiety (2.8) were "significantly" different to the UK averages.

Dawn Snape, co-author of the report, described the people of NI as a "conundrum".

She said: "Aren't they great? They're a real conundrum for us.

"Unemployment is high yet they really buck the trend. At the moment we don't know the answer to this. It may be down to social connectivity, a great sense of community, maybe it is down to how life is going there now compared with 15 years ago."

(JP/CD)