And here is the good news. Wycombe is a league topping area to bring up kids – official.

The town and surrounding area are in the top 50 out of 200 towns and cities chosen by an estate agency called Yopa to find the best place to raise a family in the UK.

The results of the survey published this weekend will give locals something to smile about at the end of a week blighted by the fall out from the coronavirus outbreak. Today (Friday) is International Happiness Day.

Wycombe comes in at 46th in the 2020 Happy Family Home Guide. Maidenhead is 12th on the list, Bracknell is 34th. Top place went to Richmond on Thames.

The ratings were judged on a wide range of criteria including proximity to schools rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. Sources included Zoopla for house prices, gov.uk for job opportunities and school ratings, ONS for average salaries, The Telegraph for pollution and obesity levels, police.uk for crime rates, mirror.co.uk for drug and alcohol abuse and roadcrashindex.org for road safety figures. Typical house price in Wycombe when the results were compiled was £399,084. Average weekly wage was £580. There are four independent primary schools and three state grammar schools in the area. Seventy seven per cent of state and primary schools and 64 per cent of secondary schools have an Ofsted rating of Good or Outstanding,

Drug and alcohol abuse are both below the national average.

The crime rate was assessed by taking the number of recorded crimes in a month for each 1,000 of the local population. The crime rate for Wycombe during the month of the survey was 62.

Pollution was 10.1 judged by particulates per metre cubed.

Results for Maidenhead put the average house price at £560,532 and weekly salary at £641. There are five independent primary schools in the riverside town on the Berks/Bucks border.

Overall 90 per cent of primaries in the state and private sector have a Good or Outstanding Ofsted rating, 73 per cent of secondary schools including the one grammar has a top Ofsted rating. Drug and alcohol abuse are both below average in the town.

The publication of this year’s list comes at a time when everyone lucky enough to have a home is likely to regard it as a fortress.

Yopa’s chief property analyst Mike Scott summed up: “Our home is typically our most important and expensive purchase so it’s vital we consider a variety of factors before deciding where to base the family.“Everyone will have a different set of move motivators when it comes to choosing an area in which to look for a new home.

“The health-conscious may look for low levels of pollution and access to plenty of green spaces while others prioritise top schools and low crime rates. Deciding where to live can be difficult and time consuming.”

Other news

n Chancellor Rishi Sunak is doing his bit to make it easier to work from home. He plans to invest £5bn of government revenue into gigabit-capable broadband across the UK by the end of 2025

n To keep the virus at bay, Hamptons International has postponed the agency’s bi-annual sales bonanza due to take place this Saturday to help Londoners find the home of their dreams in countrified areas like Bucks. “But we’ll still promote our country properties by putting cards [sales details] in the windows of London branches,” emphasises Gary Hammond, associate director of the department for Prime and Country Houses’ Beaconsfield office.