Leicester crowned best place to live and work in East Midlands
Leicester has been ranked the best place to live and work in the East Midlands. A number of factors, including the city's healthy work-life balance and decent transport links, helped it win the accolade in this year's Good Growth for Cities Index.
It was also seen as a "good environment to set up a new business". The city further performed well when safety and workforce skills were considered.
In addition to coming out top in the East Midlands, Leicester placed 20th overall in the rankings which examines the UK's 52 largest cities. In response to the news, city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said that when he was elected in 2011, Leicester had a "collective inferiority complex" and "couldn't believe it had anything good about itself". Today, he said, he believes that attitude is completely different.
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He told LeicestershireLive: "It's great to see that people want to come and live here, but also to see the numbers of people who want to come and visit here."
The mayor said that for him, Leicester has three key selling points: its history; its historic buildings; and its people. He said: "It has 2,000 years of history. It's got some wonderful buildings from every period of its development over those 2,000 years which are very much cherished and looked after.
"And the third [selling point] is the people. We're very proud of the fact that we're a diverse city, and, as a result of that, we've got an incredible range of things to offer to people wanting to live or work or play here, or visit."
The next best-performing city in the East Midlands was Derby, ranked 23rd overall. Lincoln was 24th, Nottingham finished 35th and Northampton was 40th. The index looks beyond core economic growth and instead considers broad measures of economic well-being such as jobs, income, health, skills, work-life balance, housing, transport and the environment. Leicester received average scores for jobs, health and housing.
But the report authors said they believed the new Government's push for further devolved powers for cities in the UK - enabling them to make more decisions on where Government funding is spent locally - will help to make the outlook in Leicester and elsewhere "far rosier" over the coming 12 months.
The report states: "Though the tough economic environment has affected real economic growth across the UK, we expect a rosier outlook for several cities. The UK economy is recovering slowly and steadily, and we expect economic growth to bounce back this year and continue on into 2025."
Rachel Taylor, of PwC, said it was up to local leaders to now make the push for growth. She said: "As local leaders look forward to playing a greater part in delivering economic growth in their areas, they have a window of time to take stock.
"They must use this time to reassess what their strengths and ambitions are for their areas and how they will grasp the fresh opportunities on the horizon."