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Aberystwyth is the 'top student town'
A study by a student accommodation website has found that Aberystwyth is the best place to live.
Accommodationforstudents.com based the research on nearly 34,000 student reviews from 81 university towns around the UK.
Students rated their university location across five criteria: going out (restaurants, pubs, clubs), shops (supermarkets, corner shops, book shops, video shops), transport links (buses, trams, train, underground), community (safety, student population, surroundings) and facilities (gyms, libraries, parks).
Aberystwyth came out top with a score of 64%, with the town scoring well on community and going out.
Equal second, with a score of 62%, are Brighton, Manchester and Exeter in England, and Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee in Scotland.
Three other Welsh university towns, Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor joined Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield, Plymouth, Oxford and Southampton among the third tier that scored 60%, whilst the Celtic connection is further represented by Belfast.
London and Cambridge scored 56% and bottom of the league is Pontypridd in Wales along with Salford, Bolton and Hatfield, with a score of 44%.
Simon Thompson, co-founder and director of accommodationforstudents.com, said: “This information, available on our website, represents students’ real opinions about where they study and is, of course, helpful to students going to university for the first time.
"It is also useful for existing students who are looking to move as it also provides a breakdown of the best areas within cities. For instance, in the City of Manchester the area of Fallowfield comes out as the top place to live for students. For Brighton, it’s Bevendean and for Cardiff, Cathays.
"Likewise, our student rental analysis provides invaluable data about the average cost and availability of student accommodation in over 80 locations throughout the UK.
"Features like these are one reason why accommodationforstudents.com has over 1.8 million registered student users, receives over 475,000 unique visitors in peak months, and has students spending an average of over 7 minutes on the site per visit.”
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