Hart in Hampshire where the average home will cost you £420,000 named UK's best place to live for fifth year

Hart in North East Hampshire has been crowned the UK's best place to live in a quality of life survey.

The Orkney Islands in Scotland took second place, followed by Rutland in the East Midlands, Wychavon in Worcestershire - and last year's winner Winchester in fifth place.

Hart, which contains the town of Fleet, has come out on top five times in the past six years in the Halifax Quality of Life Survey, which took into account factors such as residents' health and life expectancy, wellbeing, earnings, employment, crime rates and weather.

Southern England dominates the top 50 list, securing 35 of the 50 places.

Nowhere in London made the top ten. Westminster came 13th and the City of London 18th.

Richmond upon Thames and Kensington and Chelsea also made the top 50.

But living in an area with such a good quality of life comes at a price, with the average house price in Hart, at £419,231 standing at 8.8 times the average annual pre-tax local income.

Hart rocketed back up to first place from 26th position last year having scored strongly in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) personal wellbeing survey, Halifax said.

More than nine in 10 (97 per cent) residents there report good or fairly good health and it has the longest average female life expectancy in the UK of 86.7 years, and the third longest for males (82.5 years), the report found.

Hart residents enjoy 32.5 hours per week of sunshine, against the national average of 29.7 hours.

Russell Galley, managing director, Halifax, said: "Hart seems to have been offering residents an unrivalled mix of living standards for five of the last six years, seeing employment rates, average earnings and ONS personal wellbeing rankings bounce back after falling from the top spot last year.

"Along with Hart, many areas in southern England score strongly in categories including the labour markets and health.

"Northern areas tend to perform well on education and benefit from more affordable properties with lower house prices to earnings."