Milton Keynes 7th in the country for '˜good growth' says new report

The fifth annual Good Growth index measures the performance of 42 of the UKs largest cities, comparisons are made against a number of categories defined by the public and business as ‘key to local socio-economic success’.

These categories include jobs, health, income and skills, work-life balance, house-affordability, travel-to-work times, income equality and pollution, as well as business start-ups.

MK has the biggest wide-ranging score profile and is above average for jobs, income, health, new businesses, owner occupation and environment.

However our area is below average on elements such as work-life balance, housing affordability and income distribution, suggesting that the city is facing the ‘price of success’ dilemma.

Compared with 2015, the category with the largest improvement is jobs in Milton Keynes.

These improvements are in line with the national trend as the economy recovered significantly between 2012 and 2015.

Across the region, the areas that have seen the biggest score reductions are owner occupation and work-life balance.

Almost half of the cities in the region are above average for health, transport, environment and new businesses per head.