Sign up to FREE email alerts from businessInsider - Daily Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Edinburgh has the 'healthiest' High Street in the UK, according to a report.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) ranked around 70 High Streets in Britain.

The Health on the High Street: Running on Empty report used a scale giving points for pubs and bars, dentists, opticians, libraries, leisure centres, museums and galleries, pharmacies, coffee shops and vape shops.

Points were deducted for betting shops, payday lenders, fast food outlets, off licences, tanning salons and empty shops.

Edinburgh was the only Scottish town or city in the top ten healthiest or unhealthiest.

It finished top of the healthy list ahead of Canterbury and Taunton.

The unhealthiest town in the UK was Grimsby followed by Walsall and Blackpool.

The RSPH rankings found those living in the top 10 healthy areas lived an average of two-and-a-half years longer than those with the 10 unhealthiest high streets.

London's many high streets were ranked separately, with Seven Sisters Road in Haringey, Roman Road West in Bow and Thornton Heath in Croydon coming bottom.

Muswell Hill in Haringey, Hornchurch in Havering and Pinner in Harrow were deemed the healthiest high streets in the capital.

It added off-licences and the growing number of empty shops to the list of negative features on a high street, while cafes and vape shops were added to the positive influences.

Deprived areas now have five times more fast food shops than wealthy neighbourhoods, the RSPH said.

The number of empty shops on the high street has also increased from below 7% in 2007 to 11% in 2017.

The findings come in the wake of the Chancellor's announcement in the autumn budget of several measures aimed at helping ailing high street shops facing decimation by their online rivals.

Philip Hammond announced that 500,000 small retailers will see a third knocked off their business rates, while a digital services tax will be levied at tech giants with global revenues above £500 million.

A £650 million fund was also announced to improve transport access for struggling town centres and to turn empty shops into homes and offices.

Shirley Cramer CBE, chief executive of the RSPH, said: "While the face of the British high street continues to change, the environmental and economic factors that influence inequalities in health outcomes across the country remain stubbornly intractable.

"Our Health on the High Street rankings illustrate how unhealthy businesses concentrate in areas which already experience higher levels of deprivation, obesity and lower life expectancy.

"Reshaping these high streets to be more health-promoting could serve as a tool to help redress this imbalance."

She added: "While we broadly welcome the package of measures announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer this week, we are concerned that they do not go far enough."

She said local authorities were unable to reshape their high streets to promote positive businesses due to ongoing funding cuts.