Happiness on the rise in Halton
ANXIETY has fallen and happiness has increased in Halton according to latest figures – but with the area now falling behind the region as a whole.
All four categories used by the Office For National Statistics to measure personal wellbeing improved in the borough between 2012 and 2018.
These are life satisfaction, how much life feels worthwhile, happiness, and anxiety.
Despite improvements recorded in all four areas, the borough dropped from having better-thanaverage scores compared to the North West to lagging behind the region for life satisfaction, sense of life being worthwhile and happiness.
Anxiety levels remain better than average for the North West, with residents reporting a score of 2.77 out of 10 for how anxious they felt in 2017-18, compared to 3.15 in 2011-12.
Life satisfaction, life being worthwhile and happiness in Halton were all worse than the UK average, but anxiety scores were better.
Halton’s average life satisfaction in 2017-18 was scored as 7.64 out of 10, compared to 7.68 for the North West.
For ‘worthwhile’, the Halton figure was 7.82, lower than the regional ● average of 7.91.
The borough’s happiness score was 7.42, again behind the North West on 7.48.
The most miserable place in the North West was Knowsley, with a happiness level of 7.11.
Copeland in Cumbria was the happiest at 8.24.
In 2010, the then-Prime Minister David Cameron launched the National Wellbeing Programme in a bid to ‘start measuring our progress as a country, not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life’.
The scheme was intended to complement objective measures of wellbeing such as unemployment, life expectancy and economic performance with data on the nation’s subjective feelings.