YORK has some of the healthiest high streets in the UK, according to a new report by the Royal Society for Public Health.

The city has fewer businesses classed as "unhealthy", like bookmakers, fast food takeaways and tanning shops, than other areas, and the spaces are filled instead with facilities which score better on the society's "Richter scale of health".

The society's chief executive Shirley Cramer said: "While our ranking of towns and cities is by no means a reflection on whether these areas are generally healthy or unhealthy, our research does find higher concentrations of unhealthy businesses exist in places which already experience high levels of deprivation and premature mortality.

"We recognise that businesses investing in high streets are important for local economies; but this shouldn’t be at any price.”

The report, "Health of the High Street", counts the number of healthy and unhealthy businesses in the main retail areas of cities, with York coming in 62nd out of 70 in a league of the least healthy locations across the UK.

Based on a survey of public and expert opinion, places like leisure centres, health services, pharmacies, health clubs, libraries, museums and art galleries all score well for improving people's health, and even pubs and bars are scored well because they encourage social interaction and boost mental and emotional health.

But tanning salons, bookmakers, fast food takeaways and payday loan shops attracted negative points in the report because of the harm they can do.

Harrogate did not score as well, coming in 43rd out of the 70 cities surveyed.

The Royal Society is now calling for the next government to do more to promote public health, by doing things like giving local councils more powers to prevent the proliferation of places like betting shops, payday lenders and fast food outlets.

Ms Cramer added: "The Five Year Forward View calls for us to move “further and faster” to improve the public’s health. This could be achieved by granting Local Authorities enhanced powers to create a rich mix of health promoting businesses on our high streets and encouraging businesses to promote healthy choices.

York scores so well because it has a comparatively low number of fast food outlets, the society’s policy and research executive Emma Lloyd said, and the city high number of museums, galleries and social venues like pubs and bars put it in a good position.

And the city out-performs Harrogate because although the two places have a similar number of tanning salons and pawnbrokers, the fact that York has many more shops means the “unhealthy” venues are more heavily concentrated in Harrogate, she added.