Guildford, Surrey — best places to live in the UK 2018

We gave it a rest from our list last year — the residents don’t need any more reasons to be smug — but you can’t keep Surrey’s county town down. Guildford is a top all-rounder, loved by parents for its over-achieving schools; commuters, thanks to fast trains to London Waterloo (37 minutes); and students at the STEM-strong Surrey University. It’s also a shopaholic’s nirvana. The newly smoothed high street — after a £1m project to relay its 1860s cobbles — makes their path even easier. There’s every aspirational store you could want to spend money in, and run-down Tunsgate Square is now the Tunsgate Quarter, with the only Loaf outside London and an Ivy Brasserie with views of the Surrey Hills. Locals head for cocktails