Bradford tops green cities league

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Despite its industrial past, Bradford has been named Britain's greenest city.

The Sustainable Cities Index ranked the 20 largest cities according to three criteria and judged Bradford best in terms of environmental impact.

Brighton and Hove topped the other two areas - quality of life and progress towards a more sustainable future.

Liverpool was rated the least sustainable city overall, while Hull had the lowest quality of life and Wolverhampton was the least green.

Bradford played a key role in the Industrial Revolution and was home to many of Britain's biggest and most polluting textile mills.

Despite this the city scored particularly highly in terms of water quality, in part due to a new £70m sustainable waste treatment programme.

'Future-proof'

Brighton and Hove's position as overall winner was partly put down to its affluence.

MOST SUSTAINABLE CITIES Brighton and HoveEdinburghBristolPlymouthLeeds

It was judged to be the best place to live in terms of life expectancy, unemployment and the amount of green space available.

And it topped the "future-proof" table for its commitments on climate change and efforts to increase recycling and encourage green businesses.

But Brighton ranked just 15th in the environmental impact league, which measured factors like air and water quality, pollution and resource use.

For overall sustainability, Edinburgh came second, with London ranked 10th.

LEAST SUSTAINABLE CITIES WolverhamptonCoventryHullBirminghamLiverpool

The capital has one of the most ambitious civic climate change action plans in the world, but pollution pushed it down to 17th in the green table.

Meanwhile, Hull was rated highly for public transport but fell short in all other indicators.

Liverpool did particularly badly in terms of water quality and low educational attainment but the report noted better performances in the areas of air quality, ecological impact and waste collection.

Overall, wealthier cities performed best and all four Midlands cities fell in the bottom third of the table.

The charity Forum for the Future says it plans to publish the Sustainable Cities Index annually.

Chief executive Peter Madden said he hoped it would encourage "healthy competition amongst our big cities to see who is greenest".