Apparently Walthamstow comes in at 64th out of 273 in the UK's list of Happy Places, ahead of the neighbouring Boroughs of Barking (244th), Enfield (193rd) Hackney (105th), Haringey (219th), Newham (212th) and Redbridge (113rd). These places are superficially similar and are often lumped together as East or North East London, but in truth, they are very different to Waltham Forest, especially Walthamstow.

Those of us who know and love the place will not be surprised at this. We do not kid ourselves that this is the best place in the world (its brilliant transport links to elsewhere are one of its selling points for me)- and we do have many problems, but locals are the first to admit these. My experience of talking to all sorts of people here generally are that they can do that and see still the positives in life as well. There is also a unique openness to our local culture - with lots of creativity, energy and goodwill around the place which makes it very attractive, even if we aren't all rolling in money.