SALISBURY NAMED UK'S ‘BEST PLACE TO LIVE’ YEAR ON FROM NOVICHOK POISONING







Salisbury has been named the UK’s “best place to live” just one year after becoming globally infamous as the scene of a deadly nerve agent attack.

The cathedral city topped the annual list compiled by The Sunday Times, which praised its “resurgent community spirit” following the novichok poisonings, which made headlines around the world.

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia both survived an assassination attempt blamed on Russian intelligence agency GRU.

But the poisoning later claimed the life of local Dawn Sturgess, 44, who died died after coming into contact with a perfume bottle that was thought to have been used in the attack.

Commenting on the decision to choose Salisbury as the best place to live in the UK, Helen Davies, The Sunday Times home editor said it had "shown real collective spirit in dealing with a chemical attack that saw the cathedral city become the centre of world headlines for all the wrong reasons”.

Ms Davies added: “There are still parts of the city where the clean-up continues, but to bounce back and be even stronger is a sure sign of a very special community, which is one of the reasons we have chosen Salisbury as the best place to live in Britain in 2019.

“It remains a divinely attractive and welcoming place. It’s handy for coast, countryside and London, has some of the best schools in the south-west, a great market and it’s very strong culturally, too.”

Reproduction: Independent 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'We pray for this bad time to end': the steep cost of lockdown in South Africa

Image
In the morning in Olievenhoutbosch, the children wake early and run in the small dirt yard. There is hot tea and hope. In the afternoon, everyone is hungry and listless, and the hours drag. Tempers fray. By nightfall, with little for dinner except vegetables and maize meal, spirits flag. “The evenings are hard,” said Maria Rabutla, who lives with her two daughters and three grandchildren in a small two-bedroom house in Olievenhoutbosch. “The children are saying they want more to eat. We just tell them that we all must trust in God and that God will answer us and that this will pass too.” Last week there was excitement in the township, where 70,000 people live in tightly packed rows of small houses and shacks surrounded by the malls, business parks and gated communities that sprawl around Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city. First, the strict lockdown imposed across South Africa in late March to stem the spread of Covid-19 was eased to allow people out of their homes between 6am a...
Read more

WETHERSPOONS BLASTED BY SUNDAY TIMES FOOD CRITIC IN SCATHING REVIEW

Image
A top restaurant critic has polarised readers of The Sunday Times this weekend with a scathing review of JD Wetherspoon. Visiting the pub chain’s newest outpost in Ramsgate, Marina O’Loughlin slated the “calorific” menu and advises prospective visitors to avoid the food altogether. The esteemed critic  – who succeeds the late AA Gill - received a slew of vitriolic responses from readers for what is only her third column in the role. O’Loughlin, clearly unimpressed by the pub’s culinary offerings, slates every dish she names. From the mushy peas (“fag ash”) to the quinoa and chicken salad (“impacted cardboard”) to the mixed grill (“the sort of thing you might scoop out of the bottom of Hannibal Lecter’s recycling bin”), not even a mere chicken burger ("flabby") could win the highly-sought-after-critic’s seal of approval. Reproduction: Independent 
Read more