Dudley crowned one of the UK's most festive towns – but do locals agree?
Dudley residents have said they feel the borough has "been jollier" despite being crowned as one of the UK's most festive places.
New figures, released by the digital headphones magazine Headphonesty, rank Dudley as the fifth most Christmas-inclined town in the whole of the UK – but do locals agree?
Dudley was ranked fifth in a search of the volume of listening to Christmas songs per 100,000 population, with the town seeing 781 months of Christmas song searches per 79,379 population.
The historic borough was only beaten by Lancaster, Bath, Inverness and Wrexham, which came fourth, third, second and first respectively.
In light of the festive reveal, we visited the historic capital of the Black Country to get residents' opinions on the jolliness of the town centre, and if they feel it deserves a top ten spot as the UK's most festive.
Donna Maynard, another resident of Dudley, said she feels more festive than ever, she said: "It's nice here at this time of year. I'm not surprised we ranked so high, but I wouldn't have expected the top five no.
"The town centre usually does a lot for Christmas, there are already a lot of Christmas lights around and the tree will hopefully be decorated soon. I think there is more to come as we get closer to Christmas."
Walking through the town centre, you definitely get the festive feeling as you walk past the Christmas tree in the market centre and into Churchill Shopping Centre, which was lit up by lovely sparkling decorations for December.
Not all residents feel as holly and jolly though, as Jenna McCarthy explained that Christmas has been better in previous years.
Jenna, 43, of Dudley, said: "I think it's maybe taken a step down after COVID, which is a shame – I remember the lights being up earlier than this on most years. But I suppose it is quite festive compared to some places.
"I listen to a fair few Christmas songs to be fair, I wouldn't say enough to get in the top five though. It's nice to be ranked so highly."
Dudley beat off Canterbury, Hereford, Lincoln, Chester and Doncaster for the top five spots, ranked sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth in the national list.
Tim Yeoman, 52, also of Dudley, said: "It's not too bad here, Merry Hill looks quite nice as well. I would say we are more festive than most, but probably not so much as more upper-class areas.
"It's probably been jollier in previous years, but they are still putting stuff up I think. We will have to see when we get closer to Christmas."
The research analysed Google search data to determine which UK towns and cities love festive jingles the most based on the number of searches per month per 100,000 residents.
