RESEARCH carried out by Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour has identified the best places for women to live in Britain.

Two areas of Scotland were named the top spots for women, East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire, followed by West Oxfordshire, West Berkshire and South Oxfordshire.

The affluent London borough of Islington topped the list of least female-friendly areas in Britain, followed by Blackpool. In third place was Corby in Northamptonshire, then Boston in the East Midlands, Kingston Upon Hull in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Data from the Office for National Statistics was used to put the study together and factors such as income, housing affordability, safety, education, culture and the environment, were considered.

Areas were marked down for having poor housing affordability, community safety concerns, low levels of wellbeing and low pay.

The research looked at 380 local authority areas and was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen). Nancy Kelly, director of policy research at NatCen described the top five local authorities as being “all relatively affluent areas that are either suburbs of cities, or part of the commuter belt for cities.”

East Dunbartonshire topped the rankings due to being rated highly on factors such as happiness, green spaces and well-being. In contrast Islington was described as having a high crime rate and house prices at more than 16 times the local average income.