It seems a bit unfair. It has an amazing beach, complete with strange but fascinating sculptures by Antony Gormley and some rather attractive houses for sale – but Crosby was, officially, the worst town for property sales in March.

www.home.co.uk reveals that towns and cities in the North of England dominate the slowest property markets. Painfully long average marketing times of up to a year show that these property markets are far from recovery.

According to its Time on Market survey results from www.home. co.uk’s search engine, which tracks around 600,000 properties for sale across the UK, Crosby was No 1 of the 20 worst towns for sales with 941 homes on the market and an average time on the market of 365 days. Other towns on the list included Hartlepool, Wallasey, Skegness and Whitley Bay