People who live in Epsom and Ewell are the most satisfied in Surrey with their lot in life, a new poll has revealed.

The information comes courtesy of a government initiative designed to monitor the quality of life for people across the UK under a data project called National Wellbeing Measures.

This collected info from a survey of 139,690 participants across the UK to gauge their wellbeing by assigning numerical values to feelings like happiness or stress.

According to the information, Epsom and Ewell scored 8 out of 10 for life satisfaction.

Lower levels were recorded for all the neighbouring boroughs – Sutton (7.5), Kingston upon Thames (7.6), Reigate and Banstead (7.7) and Mole Valley (7.7).

The borough also scored highly in participants happiness compared to its neighbours.

Epsom and Ewell scored 7.8 out of 10 compared with Sutton (7.3), Kingston upon Thames (7.3), Reigate and Banstead (7.6) and Mole Valley (7.8).

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council (EEBC) reacted happily to the news as they commented on the findings:

"Levels of stress within the borough were measured as significantly falling from previous years. This was in direct contrast to the rest of the UK which saw average ratings of anxiety increase," a spokesperson pointed out.

"Across the country average ratings of life satisfaction and happiness deteriorated; within Epsom and Ewell they increased."

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Councillor Barry Nash, who chairs the community and wellbeing committee, offered his thoughts:

"While it is fascinating to compare ourselves with our neighbours, the real purpose of these statistics is for local authorities to measure their performance over a period of years in order to continually improve the services they provide for their residents," he said.

The community spirit, Cllr Nash added, was a possible explanation as to why the borough seemed to be a satisfying place to live.

"There is growing evidence that volunteering and being an active citizen increases an individual’s wellbeing and self-worth.

"I would like to think this borough with its strong community spirit, recently demonstrated during the lockdown, is one of the factors behind these remarkable statistics," he said, warning that the statistics would likely be changed were the recent months during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic taken into account.

"It will be naïve to think that these figures, which are for the year ending 30 March, won’t be significantly impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic and how that has affected borough residents and businesses."