According to a survey in 2006 by The Halifax, Elmbridge has among the best standards of living in the UK, leading the Daily Mail to dub the borough 'The Beverly Hills of Surrey.' We'd have to agree.
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Positioned in the north east corner of Surrey, Elmbridge ranked highly with us, as it's the 6th best place in the country for residents with higher education qualifications. But with twice as many over 45s as under 18s, Elmbridge sure isn't swinging. Local estate agents call it Surrey's Beverley Hills. But with average house prices like these we'd say more Heavily Billed!
A huge 64.5 per cent of the population work in high-powered professional or managerial careers, compared to 42 per cent of the national as a whole. Just 0.6 per cent of Elmbridge folk claim job seeker's allowance. And with 12 per cent of the population over 70, you can expect to live to a ripe old age.
Thirty five officers, dedicated to making sure that Elmbridge's leisure facilities are all they should be, may help keep that life expectancy high. They work within leisure centres and Elmbridge's 1,250 acres of open spaces to organise programmes like a healthy walks scheme keeping the 122,000 strong population fit and healthy.
Elmbridge benefits from an active borough council too. In an average week, the council will collect litter in parks and recreation grounds seven times, serve 1,200 meals in centres for retired people, and carry out 20 housing advice interviews, to name but a few services. Council tax then works out at £3.65 per week for band D properties - higher than average, but hardly a rip-off.
The desirability of the area is reflected in meaty house prices, with the average price of a detached home not far shy of the million pound mark at £950,000. Of course, detached houses in commuter family-friendly areas will always fetch exponentially more than flats, which you can still find in Elmbridge for under £200,000.
Borough HQ Esher is particularly suitable for those with London jobs - you can get to Waterloo in less than half an hour from the town's main station. And if you're thinking the name Esher rings a bell, you'd be right - it's a comedy fave. The Good Life, Only Fools & Horses and Monty Python have all had pops at the town's reputation for comfortable ordinariness, with the Pythons featuring one of the troupe dressed up in modest tribal gear proclaiming, 'Full frontal nudity? Not in this part of Esher.'
Have your say and see what other people are saying about Elmbridge and the other 433 UK boroughs >>
Find out which borough made it in at number 9 in 2007 >>
Local area info on Elmbridge from upmystreet.com >>
Elmbridge Borough Council >>
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