COLCHESTER is one of the friendlies towns and cities in Britain, according to a new research study.

The study, conducted by Parkdean Resorts, ranked places across the country using measures such as residents' happiness, safety, the number of business, community activities and Facebook groups and pages.

After scores were averaged, Colchester was ranked 23rd with an index score of 276.

The town scored particularly highly in the safety and Facebook group categories, however, it was slightly less impressive in the residents' happiness category.

Parkdean Resorts said: "Colchester is famously known as being Britain's oldest recorded town and is home to several Romano-British temples.

"This historic town boasts an array of local businesses, offers a selection of activities suitable for all the family and online Facebook groups which solidify its place as one of the friendliest towns in the UK."

Gazette: Colchester ranked as one of 'friendliest' places in the country in new studyColchester ranked as one of 'friendliest' places in the country in new study

Edinburgh came out on top in the analysis, followed by Exeter and the Oxford.

The only other Essex place to be ranked in the 50 was Chelmsford, which came 40th.

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Happiness rates were sourced from the Office of from ONS, safety stats from ADT, number of local businesses from the UK Small Business Directory, the number of community activities from TripAdvisor and the number of Facebook groups directly from Facebook.

Gazette: Colchester ranked as one of 'friendliest' places in the country in new studyColchester ranked as one of 'friendliest' places in the country in new study

Parkdean said on its website: "We ranked UK towns and cities based on happiness, safety, number of local businesses, number of community activities and number of Facebook groups to determine which place has the strongest sense of community.

"We sourced our happiness rates from ONS, safety stats from ADT, number of local businesses from the UK Small Business Directory, number of community activities from TripAdvisor and number of Facebook groups directly from Facebook.

"The locations were then put in order based on a final index score which decided the areas with the strongest sense of community, made up of their results for every metric. If an area didn’t have data for a particular metric it was removed from the final results."

You can view the full research here.