West Sussex is the county offering pensioners have the highest quality of life in retirement, according to a new study by Prudential.
Its quality of retirement index revealed that West Sussex has overtaken Dorset as the most attractive retirement county for pensioners.
East Sussex, Devon and Norfolk make up the rest of the top five pensioner friendly counties.
Prudential based its rankings on a range of data, including disability-free life expectancy, access to healthcare, crime levels, pension income, weather and healthy lifestyle data.
The study looked at data from the Office for national Statistics and the Met Office for 55 counties in England and Wales.
With Fishbourne Roman Palace and Arundel Castle within its boundaries, West Sussex has the second highest net inflow of pensioners in England and Wales and enjoys strong rankings for good weather and disability-free life expectancy.
Older people in Herefordshire can look forward to their retirement knowing that they have the highest disability-free life expectancy.
Devon is the most attractive county for pensioners moving house, with the highest net influx of over 65s last year.
Surrey remains the county with the highest mean pension income, with an average income of £21,400, nearly a third higher than the average in England and Wales.
Meanwhile, pensioners in Wales have reasons to be cheerful, with Gwynedd enjoying the highest number of healthcare workers per capita and Dyfed and Powys having the lowest crime rates in England and Wales.
Stan Russell, a retirement income expert at Prudential, said: “There are now 10.6 million people aged 65 or over in England and Wales, a million more than five years ago, and accounting for nearly one in five of the total population. So deciding on the right place to retire to is a challenge faced by a huge number of people each year.
“Our analysis shows that every part of the country has something different to offer pensioners, but the counties with the most attractive attributes tend to be along the southern and eastern coasts of England. Counties like West Sussex and Dorset may be attractive because of their low crime rates or the quality of their health care. However finding the right spot to live in such popular locations can be tricky.”
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