Guess which Black Country and Staffordshire towns rank as the area's best place to live

Research by house hunting website Garrington Property Finders ranked cities, towns and villages across England and Wales, to find the nation's best and worst places to live.

The analysis included a total of 1,429 locations that ranked highly in at least one of five criteria, including – natural beauty and flood risk, wellbeing, heritage, schools and employment and value for money.

Garrington Property Finders said that many of the most desirable places to live in England and Wales became better value for money last year as property prices declined.

Now, in light of the new data, we compared areas across all four of the Black Country boroughs and some locations further afield to see which are ranked the best in the national rankings; and what we found shocked us.

The figure is gathered and ranked out the 1429 locations that are charted in the list, however, Garrington Property Finders says that research only ranks the best places to live, so being included at all is "to be applauded".

16. Brierley Hill – 1320 out of 1429

Brierly Hill was placed among the lowest of the 'best places to live list', coming in at 1320, the area ranked low on house price quality and value and also the wellbeing of its residents, ranking 1240 and 1037 respectively; however the area scraped it back by ranking 561 in the natural environment category.

15. West Bromwich – 1306 our of 1429

West Bromwich was shown to have scored considerably low on the house price quality and value, scoring 1335, and the wellbeing of it's residents, scoring 1313 – however the area managed area scored 421 in its heritage and culture, showing that residents care about the locations history.

14. Oldbury – 1280 out of 1429

Oldbury scored considerably well in the heritage and culture category, scoring 389 nationally. However the area was let down by it's natural environment, at 1074, wellbeing, at 1319, and the housing price quality, at 1363.