The parish of Lagoa and Carvoeiro has been voted as the best place in the Algarve due to its quality of life.

A new report by imovirtual assessed the quality of life in 62 parishes throughout the Algarve and found the central Algarve region, more specifically the municipality of Lagoa, is top of the list of best places to live in the Algarve.

A total of more than 15,000 people responded to the survey, answering questions based on a 1 to 5 rating and covering issues such as cost of living, parking, access to health care, accessibility, security and safety, transportation, shops, restaurants, schools and air quality.

Lagoa and Carvoeiro had an overall score of 4.06, followed by Montenegro (4.05), Vila Real de Santo António (4.00), Tavira (4.00) and São Sebastião (4.00).

Carvoeiro and Lagoa came out on top with particularly high scores for air quality (4.38), safety (4.07), cleanliness (4.00), accessibility (4.00) however, the parish did not score so favourably when it came to health care (2.38) and cost of living (3.00).

One of the highest scoring elements for all parishes was found to be security, which on average was rated at 4.5 and was highest in São Clemente (4.42) and Tavira - Santa Maria and Santiago (4,33).

At the other end of the scale transport (3,11) had the lowest overall average score. The parishes of Conceição and Estoi (2.42) and Silves (2.50) had the worst levels for this.

The three parishes with the lowest scores were found to be Olhão (3.30), Quelfes (3.32) and Alvor (3.40).  With regard to the low numbers ​​achieved by Olhão, this was mainly due to the negative contribution of characteristics such as parking (2.81), noise pollution (2.93) and leisure spaces (3.07).

Overall, when considering all of the parishes assessed, the average score for the Algarve was found to be 3.77, placing the region in eighth place on a national level according to the study.