Happy-go-lucky: Ribble Valley officially named UK's happiest place

Residents and business owners of rural Lancashire district unsurprised by ONS findings

Ask the residents of the Ribble Valley whether they would swap their rural lives for a busy city one, and the answer is straightforward: "Definitely not. The thought of it horrifies me," said Jonathan Gledhill, the landlord of the Red Pump Inn, a village dining pub in this quiet part of mid-Lancashire.

Just north of the former mill towns of south Lancashire, this green and pleasant part of the north-west - which includes the vast and unspoilt Forest of Bowland - is officially the happiest place in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. On a scale of 0 to 10, Ribble Valley residents scored an average of 8.30 when asked by government surveyors about how happy they felt. This compared with an average of 7.56 for the country at large.