Where is the happiest place to live in England in 2024?

When you're moving home, there will be a number of factors that will influence where you are going to live. 

The obvious ones are the proximity of good schools, if you have children, the transport links to get to work without too much hassle, the amenities for living, work and leisure and so on. You might want a rural location or you could prefer town or city living because of the excitement of its bustle.

But one factor that may not necessarily register on anyone's list is how happy the current residents consider themselves to be.

To this end, property portal Rightmove assesses responses from residents throughout England, Wales and Scotland to create the Happy at Home Index each year. They looked at 13 factors which residents might consider to be important and how happy they are with the provisions made for the area they live in.

Specifically, they looked at pride in the neighbourhood, sense of belonging, sense of community spirit, how friendly and polite the locals are, whether they feel they can be themselves without putting on a front, the availability and access to nature and green spaces, whether the respondent feels they earn enough to live there comfortably, access to arts and other cultural activities, the opportunities for employment and desirable and fulfilling jobs, access to sports and other recreational facilities, access to essential local amenities (such as a GP surgery, schools, police and fire services, etc.), easy access to non-essential amenities (such as shops, pubs and restaurants), and the availability public transport connections.

From this, Rightmove have compiled the top twenty locations of the happiest places to live in 2024, which is presented in the following table (along with the position in the same list, achieved in the Happy at Home Index 2023, as a comparison):

Source: Rightmove

Interestingly, Woodbridge in Essex has jumped 16 places in the space of a year to top the chart, with Richmond-upon-Thames, last year's top-placed location, dropping to number two, and Hexham in Northumberland taking third place after just scraping into the top ten in 2023. Winchester, placed second last year, has dropped just outside this year's top ten.

So, if you're looking for a local understanding and analysis of what it feels like to live in a place you are considering living, you can always assess the 2024 index as created by the responses from people who live there. It's a good starting point from which to do your own research.

Keen to get moving to your new happy place? That's where you can rely on the experts at Homeward Legal to help you with a thorough job of the legal side of things.

They will start work on your planned purchase as soon as you agree to the quotation and appoint them to represent you. 

Homeward Legal will also provide a quote that will not change - what you are quoted is what you pay for standard conveyancing process, which means you can effectively budget for your conveyancing needs.

There are some unforeseen items that might arise during the purchase and/or sale, which includes a specialist flood assessment report, but the solicitor discusses these and their cost as they come up. 

In addition, to protect the homebuyer further, Homeward Legal operates a ‘no completion, no fee' promise, which ensures that, should the purchase or sale not go through as planned to completion status, no payment is required.

Call  to get your conveyancing quote started, or to discuss your concerns with your plans to move.

Or you can get a quick quote, using Homeward Legal's easy-to-use quote generator.