“It’s odd that your list of the 30 best places to live in the UK (March 9) doesn’t mention climate. Is weather so unimportant to happiness?” asked Mr Jon Pettman, Eastbourne (Letters, March 10). “The sunnier nature of the southeast surely gives this area a head start over others in the UK.”
Indeed, the southeast is sunny, but the sunniest places of the UK are along the south coast, and especially from the Isle of Wight eastwards, with more than 40 per cent of the maximum amount of sunshine possible in a year. Bognor Regis, West Sussex, has laid claim to being the sunniest place in Britain, with an average of 1,902.9 hours of sunshine per year. The title of sunniest place in Britain is fiercely contested, though, and Mr Pettman’s home town of Eastbourne has the record for the sunniest month, with 383.9 hours sunshine in July 1911 — a record jointly held by Hastings.
By contrast, the gloomiest place in Britain is Ben Nevis, near Fort William in the Scottish Highlands, with an average of 736 hours of sunshine each year — that’s only 16 per cent of the total amount of sunshine possible. For inhabited regions, the Shetland Islands record about 24 per cent of the maximum possible sunshine on average.
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Britain is becoming sunnier, though, especially in winter. This winter set a new sunshine record, at 25 per cent above the average on records dating to 1929. Over the past few decades, central and northeastern England have seen the biggest rise in the number of hours of winter sunshine, with an increase of some 20 per cent, and the biggest increases of all have happened in parts of northern England downwind of major cities. This is largely thanks to the Clean Air Acts in the 1950s and 1960s, which reduced smoke pollution from coal burning. However, not every region in the UK has benefited from the sunnier climate. North Scotland, west Scotland, Northern Ireland and southwest England have had less sunshine, possibly because cloud density has increased.