CHELMSFORD is the best city in the UK for pedestrians, according to a new research study.

Hotel giant Novotel analysed cities across the county using data from key sources.

The firm arranged the cities by creating a weighted ranking of 50 looking at a number of factors.

The factors taken into consideration were:

  • The number of walking routes
  • Amount of green spaces
  • Activeness of residents
  • City pollution levels
  • Road traffic safety
  • Average annual rainfall

With an overall score of 76 per cent, Chelmsford came first as the best city to be a pedestrian.

The city scored high for having a large amount of green space for its 170,000 residents.

It also had extremely active residents and a relatively low amount of rainfall.

Chelmsford is named the best city in the UK for pedestrians

Chelmsford is named the best city in the UK for pedestrians

According to Novotel's research it was also one of the safest cities on the list, with fewer pedestrian and vehicle accidents than most other places in the UK.

Chelmsford didn't score quite so well on pollution, but its average score put it top of the list of 50 cities.

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Sheffield came second with a score of 71 per cent, Peterborough third with 68 per cent, Wakefield fourth with 67 per cent and St Albans rounding off the top five with 64 per cent.

At the bottom of the list was Plymouth, which scored just 27 per cent, just below Lincoln, which scored 29 per cent.

Novotel posted on its website: "We analysed key factors from a range of data sources including weather data, pollution, walking routes & green space, road traffic safety and more, we created a weighted rank of 50 of the UK's best cities to be a pedestrian in.

"Data from multiple sources was analysed, before being combined into a single score giving us our overall rank. Data accurate as of December 2020."

You can view the research here.