So now we have it, the BBC have finally confirmed what most of us already knew anyway, Edinburgh is the best place to live in Britain. Dear Old Auntie Beeb came to this conclusion after the YouGov PlaceIndex study involving 10,000 adults from across the UK, voted Edinburgh as the most desirable city to live in the UK. The study ranked UK cities according to 11 key indicators: Atmosphere, Heard something positive, Cultural experience, Easy to get around, Visit yourself/recommend to a friend, Good cuisine/restaurants, Safe to invest in, Varied choice of shops, Local population friendly and helpful, How expensive, and How safe to visit.

This is hardly breaking news, last year Channel 4’s property gurus Kirstie and Phil named Edinburgh as the best place to live in Britain. A conclusion they arrived at after several months of research were carried out by a team of seven researchers lead by Professor Marc Farr of University College London. Six criteria were used in the research, these were determined by asking a representative sample of 1,000 adults over the age of 18 from across the UK. The criteria used, in order of priority, were: Crime; Environment; Lifestyle; Health; Education; Employment. Areas across the UK were then scored, using publicly available data from all the UK’s 434 local authorities on exactly the same criteria.

For those of us lucky enough to live in Edinburgh all of this comes as no surprise, as we have long known that Scotland is the Best Wee Country in the world and Edinburgh the best city in it. So it is no surprise either to find that: Scottish house prices are on the rise again. Or that, according to a report in the Financial Times, Edinburgh is outperforming rival UK cities during the recession on several key economic indicators.

Yes Edinburgh is a great place to live!