{"id":285027,"date":"2026-02-07T03:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/285027\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T03:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:32:09","slug":"this-is-the-most-depressed-city-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/285027\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is The Most Depressed City In The UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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Imagine a classic English city with postcard-pretty cobbled streets, a towering cathedral, and enough cosy pubs to see you through any weather. Now picture that same place plunged into a deep winter funk, where the post-Christmas slump hits harder than most.<\/p>\n

According to a fresh British Gas survey of 2,000 Brits, this spot tops the charts as the UK\u2019s \u201cmost depressed\u201d city come mid-to-late January \u2013 not because it\u2019s a grim spot year-round, but because the short days, biting cold, and endless grey skies make the season feel truly brutal.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s most depressed city <\/p>\n

Norwich has been dubbed the UK\u2019s \u2018most depressed\u2019 city in winter by a new survey \u2013 but the picture is much more about seasonal gloom than a fundamentally miserable place to live.<\/p>\n

A British Gas survey of 2,000 people across the UK suggests that Norwich residents feel the winter slump more keenly than most. One in four Norwich respondents said they feel genuinely depressed from mid to late January, blaming grim weather and a lack of daylight.<\/p>\n

Over half 57 percent said they\u2019re currently craving sunlight and warmth, which will surprise exactly no one who\u2019s trudged through a grey January school run or commute.<\/p>\n

Norwich tops the list of cities where people say they feel low at this time of year, but it\u2019s very specifically about the mid\u2011winter period rather than a year\u2011round state of despair.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s \u2018most depressed\u2019 cities, according to the survey <\/p>\n

British Gas\u2019 data paints a wider picture of a nation collectively fed up with January. Across the UK, 42 percent of people admitted to feeling more depressed in January than any other month, and half said they feel more irritable at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the cities in the survey stack up:<\/p>\n

Norwich: 25% report feeling genuinely depressed mid\u2013late January Swansea: 24% \u2013 joint second for winter blues Stoke-on-Trent: 24% \u2013 shares second place with Swansea Manchester: 21% \u2013 big city, big January slump Edinburgh: 16% \u2013 joint fourth place Glasgow: 16% \u2013 also joint fourth Oxford: 16% \u2013 rounds off the fourth-place trio <\/p>\n

The survey gives a flavour of how people feel, but it\u2019s far from definitive. Only 2,000 people were surveyed nationwide \u2013 a tiny slice when you remember that Norwich alone has around 150,000 residents.<\/p>\n

The article notes that other data paints different pictures: an Office for National Statistics report last year found the north east of England to be the most miserable region overall, while a Rightmove study crowned Barking and Dagenham in east London as the UK\u2019s least happy neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

So, Norwich being the \u201cmost depressed\u201d is really about this specific poll and time of year, not a settled national verdict on the city\u2019s quality of life.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, though: sample sizes aside, the evenings are already lengthening, spring\u2019s on the horizon, and those charming streets won\u2019t stay shrouded in gloom forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Shutterstock Save Imagine a classic English city with postcard-pretty cobbled streets, a towering cathedral, and enough cosy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-285027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}