Portstewart named in Sunday Times Best Places to Live Guide 2025
It may not have reclaimed the top spot this year but Portstewart has still been named in the Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2025.
Dundrum in Co. Down has been named the best place in NI but Holywood and Portstewart are also featured. Topping the poll as best place to live in the whole of the UK is Saffron Walden in Essex.
The Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2025 guide said of Portstewart, which was named as best in Northern Ireland last year: “Life in this resort on the classy Causeway Coast is pleasantly buzzy and pleasingly multigenerational.
"At its heart is one of Northern Ireland’s best beaches.The glorious two-mile sandy strand is an all-year playground for dog-walkers, surfers, swimmers and Saturday-morning Parkrunners.
"The crescent-shaped seafront holds the community together while a high street with views out to the rugged cliffs of Donegal is a good reason to linger.”
Helen Davies, editorial projects director and Best Places to Live editor, says: “It is easy to feel overwhelmed by everything going on in the world, but there really is so much to celebrate as we look closer to home.
"From small gestures that lift the everyday - like verges blooming with daffodils and volunteer-run dementia cafés, to larger initiatives from repair cafés to new railway stations.”
The Sunday Times’s expert judges visited all the locations and assessed factors from schools to transport, broadband speeds and mobile signal to culture, as well as access to green spaces and the health of the high street.