Chichester named as top cool place

Times survey names the Pallants as a super cool place to live

By Mark Hoult

I was pretty surprised to get a phone message today saying "You must look at today's Times".

I was even more surprised to find out why.

The Times has named Chichester - and specifically the Pallants - as number 22 on its list of the 30 Coolest Places in Britain.

Now, it would have been no surprise to see Chichester named alongside perennial favourite Horsham as one of the best places to live. But cool? Mmmmm?

What makes Chichester so cool?

Times Property Editor Anne Ashworth cites the quietness and lack of traffic in the Pallants. She also likes the cobbled town centre (it's a city and there aren't many cobbles, but hey!...no-one's quibbling too much about that).

Chichester's nightlife surprisingly gets a nod of approval and the theatre gets a mention too.

So who would have thought that I'm living and working in such a hotbed of hipdom?

According to The Times, my neighbours are all academics and commuters to Portsmouth, Brighton and Southampton.

And as for the house prices the paper writes about? Well, it's probably bad manners to talk about them in this day and age.

Chichester has always had something of a fusty image. Having lived here my whole life I always thought of it as a conservative place, reactionary even.

But it's reassuring to know that it's cool after all.

So where else is cool?

Brighton Kemp Town, just along the Sussex coast, also gets into the list at number 24 - described as "the gay capital of Brighton".

Elsewhere in the south east, Folkestone ("creative") and Whitstable ("for arty and media types") get a mention.

And the number one cool place in Britain apparently is Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire - a market town peopled by artists, musicians and New Agers which narrowly beat Bethnal Green to the top spot.

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