HEREFORD has been named as one of the best cities in the UK for a good night's sleep, new research suggests.

New research from bedding retailer Sleepseeker has revealed the UK’s 10 best towns and cities to sleep in and Hereford ranks fourth.

By looking at the levels of sky brightness, number of noise complaints, noise levels at night, and anxiety levels, Sleepseeker gave an overall sleep forecast score out of 100 to discover the best cities for getting a good night’s sleep.

Sleepseeker found light pollution data from the Light Pollution Map with the figures used representing the sky quality meter scores which range from 16-22 magnitude/square arc second with 16 indicating a brighter sky and 22 indicating a darker sky.

Noise pollution data came from Public Health England with the number of complaints about noise per 1,000 population and the percentage of the population exposed to road, rail and air transport noise of 55 dB(A) or more during the night.

Those scores were taken at a county and local authority level and then applied to the relevant city in the data.

Anxiety data was taken from the Office for National Statistics and concerns the score given by respondents when asked "how anxious did you feel yesterday?" with averages taken of responses.

Respondents were asked to give a score of 0-1 for very low, 2-3 for low, 4-5 for medium and 6-10 for high.

With this data, Sleepseekers applied a weighted ranking, giving equal weighting to all factors which allowed us to give a sleep forecast score out of 100.