The leader of an East Lancashire borough has hailed its being confirmed as one of the healthiest places to live in the UK in new government data.

Ribble Valley scores highly in the latest ONS Health Index which provides a systematic and independent review of health in England.

The Health Index is split into three categories (or domains): Healthy People, Healthy Lives and Healthy Places.

Within the survey, Ribble Valley’s best score for all subdomains is for health relating to living conditions, which assess areas such as household overcrowding, noise complaints, road safety, and air pollution.

In addition, Ribble Valley also scored second highest in the subdomain of crime (low-level and personal crime), giving Ribble Valley a better score in this area than the whole of the Northwest and England as a whole.

Another strong performance in the dataset was in the subdomain of health relating to daily life, which looks at disability and frailty, placing Ribble Valley in the best 10 per cent of local authority areas across England.

Ribble Valley Council leader, Cllr Stephen Atkinson, said: “One of the key elements of our vision for Ribble Valley is that Ribble Valley is an area with an exceptional environment and quality of life for all.

“Fundamental to achieving this vision is our commitment to making residents lives in the borough safer and healthier, through the delivery of our services, and by adopting a partnership approach to ensure delivery of key initiatives.

“It is fantastic that Ribble Valley is not only viewed as one of the healthiest and safest places to live in the UK overall, but that we also score highly in those areas where service delivery plays a key role."