Ipswich has been named as one of the happiest places to live in East Anglia.

The town came second in the region when a national survey asked people how contented they were with their local community.

And while on this occasion Suffolk’s county town was beaten to top spot by Norwich, it did fare better than third-placed Colchester.

The survey was conducted by website Rightmove and asked people how proud they were of their home, how safe they felt in their community and how friendly their neighbours were.

Peter Lee, Ipswich Borough Council’s operations manager for economic development, said there were a variety of reasons why the town was a good place to live.

He said: “It’s great to see Ipswich has been identified as one of the happiest places to live in East Anglia, with our stunning waterfront and beautiful parks, plus the broad appeal of our public cultural events.

“In January, the Centre for Cities report also identified Ipswich as one of the happiest places to live, second to Aldershot.

“This is further shown by the great number of managers and staff that return or never leave, like those at MSC, Inviron, Willis, NextGenAccess and BT.

“Ipswich has one of the highest employment rates in the country, is one of the fastest growing and greenest towns in the UK and has some of the fastest broadband links too.”

Top of the pile nationally was Harrogate in North Yorkshire, with Norwich solidly making the top 10 with its appearance in sixth place.

At the other end of the scale were the 10 places people felt were the least happy to live – and all of them were in London.

The unfortunate chart-topper here is East London, but this list also includes Croydon (third), Twickenham (fifth) and Harrow (eighth).