A welcome return home for the Olympic Torch
- Today's leader
Town one of best places to retire
Monday 28th April 2008, 7:00AM BST.
Shropshire’s historic county town has been heralded as one of the best places to retire to in the UK. Shrewsbury has come top in the medium sized towns category in the book “Where to Retire in Britain” by Victoria Pybus.
It recognises Shrewsbury for its medieval centre which, the book claims, contains more listed buildings than anywhere else in the country.
The book, which is covered in the latest edition of popular national magazine for the over 50s – SAGA – contains the author’s pick of the top retirement hotspots in Britain.
Her choices are based on research which includes considerations into health care, crime rates, transport connections, local amenities and property prices.
Ms Pybus says the town has “everything for a lively retirement” but warns its popularity as a place to live means it can suffer from traffic congestion.
The book says: “The town’s medieval centre is estimated to have more listed buildings (600 of them) than any town in England.
“A river runs through it in the form of the gently looping Severn. Shrewsbury’s ‘cafe society’ is a big attraction, with a wide choice of restaurants and cafes and one of the country’s most interesting cinemas, housed in an Elizabethan building.
“There is an annual arts festival – Shrewsbury Summer Season – and a folk festival.
“There is also a wonderful, privately run institution, The Concert Bus, which arranges trips to the Symphony Hall in Birmingham and major arts events and provides a door-to-door service.”
The book says the town’s population is 100,000, 14 per cent of whom are aged over 65.
The average property price is given as £227,927.
According to the book the best all-round choice for people to retire to is Southport, Merseyside, which is described as possessing “wonderful facilities, excellent transport connections and good quality of life”.
Other places listed as some of the best places to retire include Roseland in Cornwall as the top coastal choice, Malvern, Worcestershire, as the top rural choice, Bath, Avon as the top city and Shetland, Scotland, as the top island.
By Russell Roberts
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how right victoria pybus is and saga magazine are. very well said
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brilliant, now the place will be overrun with saga louts hanging about the square in tweed, drinking tea and generally being a nuisance with their big tartan trolly things.
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In my experience it certainly seems to have more than its fair share of elderly people.
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’tis true zimmer heaven!!! Especially the hilly town cntre.
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Sorry dear , youll have to speak up? Ooh me knees.
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shame it wasent the best place to live in the first place!!
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Brilliant! No wonder they want to kick the sixth-form kids out of town, clogging up the streets at lunchtime with their ‘young’ behaviour. More charity shops and tartan trolleys please, it’s what this ‘vibrant’ place needs. And why stop there, I propose our elderly council compulsorily purchase every shop on Pride Hill and replace them with an Edinburgh Woollen Mill supermegastore. Nyeeergh!!
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Does this mean the town will now be a magnet for undertakers? More oldies means plenty of trade.
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Shrewsbury becomes an elephants graveyard.
And the incoming retirees will whinge about what makes this town interesting the bars, the clubs, the cafe culture.
They will not rest until it is closed to all but the nearly dead, they can then enjoy their peace and quiet killing a town to which they contribute nothing,
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some of our local childern raised money towards a skate park, but the elderly residents complained that it would attract young people and it was stopped. Maybe Shrewsbury should be a nice place for the young to live too, or who else will look after the old folks in their homes!
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come on Devon salopian i know your still reading the star, give us a comment, i miss your wit
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If we had a university and associated employers to give us a decent economy, it might be a better place to live for the rest of us too. Young people might not have to leave to have a good career only to return when they hit 65!!
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Yes I’ve got it MJ, compulsorily purchase Shrewsbury School, Kingsland and Porthill (well the bit where Judith Williams lives anyway). We can turn that lot into the University of Shrewsbury and plenty of student accommodation to boot! We’ll drive the blue rinse brigade from their houses and encourage the youth to blossom once more! The excitement levels generated by the annual flower show and it’s perennial motorcycle display team will be nothing compared to rag week. Come on ye olde councillors, get on with it. I SAID GET ON WITH IT DEARS!
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thanks spencer, i still think my old home town,and englands premier town should be a home to every part of society. i would move back like a shot but caring for an elderly relative prevents this. i personally took it as an honour that saga published excerpts from a book nominating our town as a favourite place to live.
i do love frank zappas humour, perhaps we could rehouse the schools on the old tesco site and turn the existing shrewsbury scools site back into what it was, the towns workhouse, but i doubt this will be of any use to our new comers who should be welcomed
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