OF course it’s cracking news that the annual Office for National Statistics survey, covering the 12 months to the end of March 2018, suggests that Christchurch residents are among the happiest in the United Kingdom.

I would suggest that the more pertinent survey figures will be those covering the 12 month period to the end of March 2020. By then Christchurch and Poole will have been under merger-mad Bournemouth’s thumb for close on a year and the current Christchurch siles are unlikely to be so broad.

Meanwhile Boscombe, already under Bournemouth’s jurisdiction, is in the top five for deprivation across the entire country.

“Physicians, heal thyselves” is the phrase that leaps to mind on the Bournemouth front.

ROSS TAYLOR, Dark Street Lane, Plympton, Devon