Best Places to Live 2022 North & Northeast
the linchpin and sells a
mind-boggling number of
items, while the Hovingham
Village Market, held on the
first Saturday of every month,
has more than 40 stalls selling
food, drink and treats such as
gourmet Scotch eggs.
The sheer range of
activities, groups and clubs —
the village hall is regaining its
post-pandemic place as a
social hub, with a weekly
playgroup and family history
society, plus a welcome EV
charging point — as well as a
primary school and a
bubbling foodie scene of its
own, marks Hovingham out.
There are tennis courts, a
bowling green and a children’s
play park where volunteers
are campaigning to raise
£4,000 for essential
maintenance. Meanwhile,
Hovingham Project Purple, a
community group with
aspirations to make the village
carbon neutral by 2030, offers
Repair Café sessions.
The Worsley Arms
welcomes all-comers with film
nights, and Sunday dinners.
Even finer fare can be enjoyed
locally: Hovingham is within
ten miles of foodie capital
Malton, and the equally
tempting towns of Helmsley,
Kirkbymoorside and the
village of Harome.
“A lot of people have
downsized from down south
and bought up here, but it’s
getting a bit expensive for
youngsters,” says Stewart.
Figures from 2019 found that
just 10 per cent of the
population was aged between
21 and 40. “And that’s sad. It
makes sense to have
affordable homes if we’re to
encourage young families and
have a local window cleaner.”
Or to make up the numbers on
one of two cricket teams
played on what is reputed to
be the oldest continually-
played-on privately owned
cricket pitch in the UK.
Best place to live if... For a
slice of tasty country life.
Best address Properties off
the High Street/Main Street.
Sharp-elbowed parents
ensure they get into the
catchment area for Ryedale
School in Nawton, ranked
eighth= best state secondary
school in the UK in the
Parent Power guide.
£385,000
LEEDS E
HS2 may have stopped short
of Leeds, but it’s full-speed
She recently bought a
townhouse in the Climate
Innovation District, a
1,000-home sustainable
scheme beside the River Aire,
with her partner. “We love the
city, there’s always something
different going on like Light
Night (an annual arts festival),
Live at Leeds (a music festival)
and indie markets.”
It’s the pandemic that’s
given Leeds new life. Younger
residents who fled the city
centre back to WFH from their
teenage bedrooms soon
realised they missed the
nightlife, entertainment andculture, including an
Everyman cinema in Trinity
Leeds. At the cultural quarter
on Quarry Hill, Leeds
Playhouse, Northern Ballet,
the Phoenix Dance Theatre
and the BBC congregate on
New York Street. Plans for the
LEEDS 2023 cultural festival
(Gabby Logan, the Leeds-born
TV presenter, is its
chairwoman) involve creating
a new National Poetry Centre
in Leeds, led by Simon
Armitage, the Huddersfield-
born poet laureate.
Channel Four and Sky have
also set up offices in centralShore thing
Clockwise from
top: Tynemouth
beach;
Bridgewater
Place, Leeds;
Hovingham;
Morpeth
Clock Towerahead for the city centre.
While this West Yorkshire
powerhouse has suburbs for
every taste, urban nesters are
heeding the siren call of LS1.
Let’s put this in blunt Tyke
terms. If you work in Leeds
and want to live here, the city
centre makes sense, especially
if you’re young (under 30) or
young-at-heart, with no need
for a large garden or proximity
to a choice of schools.
Rianne Docteur, 25, a senior
business development
manager in marketing, came
to Leeds to study sociology
seven years ago, and stayed.On the up...
By Northeast standards,
buying into Tynemouth’s
beach life and boho
atmosphere can seem
cripplingly expensive. You
can get a taste of the seaside
good life at a lower cost by
walking just a couple of miles
along the cliff edge to
Cullercoats or Whitley Bay.
The Spanish City (sorry if that
brings back unwanted
memories of that Dire Straits
song) has had a first-class
facelift, there are Metro
trains to Newcastle (30
minutes or so) and there’s a
decent choice of schools.
Sheffield hasn’t had the
easiest time. The closure of
the Coles Corner John Lewis
is the latest blow to a city
centre that hasn’t
seemed quite sure
what to do with itself
since the out-of-
town Meadowhall
centre pinched a
lot of the big
names 31 years
ago. Plans to
turn the store
into a football
attraction have
met with a mixed
reception, but
developments
elsewhere suggest a
bolder, brighter future.
Assuming it gets its
post-lockdown mojo back,
Kelham Island, a funky
urban ‘hood that’s all
industrial architecture,
bars and build-to-rent
apartments will be a magnet
for the under-30s. There
are plans for a new “urban
village” in the Devonshire
Quarter. Nearby, work is
nearly finished on converting
the iconic grade II listed
Eyewitness Works into flats
and a café bar.
The Leeds suburbs can be
a confusing patchwork, with
good bits jostling with
not-so-good bits right next
door. The regeneration of the
traditionally unfavoured
southern half is due to get a
boost from a planned new
station near the White Rose
shopping centre. Meanwhile,
anyone looking for a lively
Chapel Allerton-style village
feel, only cheaper and in an
actual village, should cast
their eyes over Farsley.
Sunny Bank Mills sets the
tone. Pudsey is a leafier
alternative.18 April 10, 2022