Allerton is by far the best place to live in Liverpool

You thought you’d got a gem when the agent from “Crappy Student Lets” told you dubiously “this one’s going fast, better sign it quick.”

Take note first years, there isn’t some severe student housing shortage in Liverpool like the agents want you to think.

So now you’re sat way too far down Brookdale Road in a mouldy bedroom cursing past you for your poor life choices.

I mean why would you want to live on Smithdown with its annoying roadworks, general dirt, rampant crime and aggressive gangs of hooded youths doing wheelies?

“But it’s close to ASDA”, you say in a desperate attempt to justify living in a place that an ambitious person might call “rough around the edges”.

Just Smithdown Things: being followed home

Kensington is tempting many more students to its streets recently, mainly Vine Courters who squeal at the thought of being more than ten minutes from their beloved Nabzy’s.

Don’t be fooled though, the fondly named “Kenny” is only alluring if you enjoy vistas of desolate concrete landscapes, boarded up homes, dead rats and fresh dog turds. It really couldn’t be less like its London namesake. Don’t even try and justify living there by saying it’s close to uni.

No, the place where you all ought to be living is Allerton. Take a hop, skip and a jump just past Smithdown, under the bridge and you’ll arrive at what is clearly the best place to live in Liverpool.

Gloomy Allerton is more enticing than a Sunny Smithdown

For starters, there’s an abundance of restaurants, bars, pubs and shops.

I know we all enjoy a cheap one at the Brooky, but having your arm inseparably glued to the table every time you lean on it can become tiresome eventually. Pubs in Allerton way offer an environment free from the fear of sticky tables and loud people in snapbacks.

Or maybe you fancy breakfast at the Tavern, a minute’s walk from your front door where you can feast on a pile of pancakes and bacon.

I mean, there’s even a Pets At Home if you fancy something a little more glam than the Smithdown Aquarium – hard to imagine I know.

Or maybe it’s just the fact that the bus drivers are always happier before they meander down Smithdown’s hellish roads, and the fact that you’ll always get a seat wherever you want. Aren’t you fed up of seeing bus after bus speed – or tentatively trundle given the current roadworks – past you in the morning? Crammed full of people, resigned to the fact that you’re almost certainly going to be late for your 9AM.

The rain doesn’t even get you down in Allerton

Then there’s just the fact that the roads are so much wider, greener, cleaner and safer.

The short stroll you take to and from the bus stop and shops provides no fear, other than fearing Tesco Express might be closed because it’s nearly 11pm and you really need that third bottle of wine.

Plus you always get a seat.

And when you do crash down drunkenly on your bed at 3AM, you can’t hear the police helicopters,  drunks shouting,  sirens roaring their way to yet another fatality, or worse, homicide.

All Allerton offers at night is the soothing church bells, gonging in the distance as you drift into fantasies of cancelled lectures and an increased overdraft.

No, Allerton is a place free of the scowls and aggression of Smithdown – well apart from your neighbour who glares silently at you from the window because they filed their third noise complaint against you last night.