Preston tops the list of places to live and work in the north west
The Lancashire city beat both Manchester and Liverpool.
Preston has been named as the best place to live and work in the north west, beating both Manchester and Liverpool in an annual assessment of the UK's largest cities.
The Good Growth for Cities 2016 index measures cities against 10 categories including jobs, income, work-life balance, transport, skills and the environment.
Preston was ranked 19th out of 42 cities and received relatively high scores in most categories compared to the UK average especially, when it came to transport links and cheap housing.
Peter Rankin, the Labour leader of Preston council believes the reason for Preston's high ranking is partly due to its location, telling The Guardian, "We are just two hours from London and one hour from the Lakes and Manchester, which puts us in a very good position. We are also building 17,000 new homes and all of this contributes to our success."
Other major cities in the north west were ranked much lower than Preston with Manchester at number 30 and Liverpool at number 37.
Nationally the top five cities were Oxford, Reading, Edinburgh, Southampton and Bristol.
The Good Growth for Cities 2016 is published by the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the thinktank Demos, they measured the 10 categories between 2013 and 2015.
Well done Preston!