The good people of Twickenham have poured scorn on a survey that named the town Britain’s fifth unhappiest to live in.

Rightmove’s Happy at Home Index found Twickenham people to be among the most miserable in the country.

Nearly 50,000 people took part in the survey, asked to rate their where they live on several factors, such as wellbeing, pride, safety and neighbourliness.

Only east London, Ilford, Croydon and east central London ranked as less happy than Twickenham, although the entire top 10 was made up of London areas.

Among those in total disagreement with the survey was wind-up radio inventor Trevor Baylis, who lives on Eel Pie Island.

Mr Baylis, 77, said: “The findings from the survey are absolute crap.

“You could ask to live in a better place, Twickenham has everything you could possibly need or imagine.

“You walk down the street and everybody says good morning to you – I could not disagree more and Rightmove have made an enemy in Trevor Baylis.”

Doug Orchard, chairman of the Twickenham Society, was bewildered by the findings and said he had no complaints about the town.

He said: “We had our AGM last week and as far as I can tell, everyone is very happy living in Twickenham.

“I have lived in the town since 1972 and if I thought it wasn’t a happy place to be, I would have moved.

“It’s good for those who work in the City, it’s near the river and we have so many open spaces to enjoy, such as Marble Hill Park.

“I don’t know where they got that idea [that Twickenham is unhappy] - my daughter works as an estate agent and has never heard anything negative.”

The survey found Harrogate to be the happiest place to live, followed by Inverness and Taunton.

Rightmove’s Matthew James said: “What we’ve done is ask people to rate their own area on the 12 most important of these factors and created a model that crunches this data to give us an overall happiness league table.

“And there should be no arguments with the results as there can be no better panel of judges than a town’s own residents.”

Twickenham people also expressed their surprise on Twitter.

Andrew Wilson tweeted: “What’s this I hear of #Twickenham being full of unhappy people - rubbish, fab people, fab place”.

Peter Kirkham tweeted: “It’s amazing how much difference being JUST off the tube system makes”.

However @titchell posted: “The Twickenham area is the 5th most miserable place to live in the UK apparently. The last year makes sense now.”

Earlier this year, Teddington was named in a book called Crap Towns Returns, which described the town as “completely soulless”.

  • Were you asked to take part in the survey? Do you think Twickenham is a happy place to live? Comment below to let us know.