Photo: Nigel Coates · CC BY-SA 3.080% of the land within 5 km of Sleights is National Park or National Landscape
The North York Moors National Park reaches the edge of Sleights. 30% of residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park or playing field. Parks and playing fields in Sleights add up to 0.9 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. Sleights grades C for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
What kind of outdoors village is Sleights?
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Sleights’ strongest suit is protected countryside on the doorstep, followed by the Coast to Coast Walk. Where it falls short is park space per person.
Sleights grades C for the outdoors
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Sleights, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
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Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
Sleights is 43rd of 60 UK villages its size for the outdoors
The 60 UK towns and cities of 1,800 to 2,000 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Sleights falls furthest behind on homes near a park, where 54 of the 59 others do better.
Show as a table
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Westbourne West Sussex | A+ | 9.6 | 100% | 4.1 | 57% |
| 2 | Capel-le-Ferne Kent | A+ | 21.8 | 88% | 4 | 52% |
| 3 | Kirkby Stephen Cumbria | A+ | 4.9 | 100% | 3.7 | 65% |
| 4 | Colyton Devon | A+ | 3.5 | 100% | 2.2 | 79% |
| 5 | Brading Isle of Wight | A+ | 2.9 | 84% | 4.2 | 21% |
| 6 | Chilworth Surrey | A+ | 10.8 | 80% | 6.1 | 59% |
| 7 | Scholes (near Hade Edge) West Yorkshire | A+ | 3.8 | 100% | 4.7 | 16% |
| 8 | Ickleford Hertfordshire | A− | 3.7 | 82% | 3.7 | 11% |
| 9 | South Nutfield Surrey | A− | 2.5 | 100% | 2.7 | 11% |
| 10 | Lower Broadheath Worcestershire | A− | 6 | 100% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 11 | Goosnargh Lancashire | A− | 2.4 | 100% | 2.5 | 6% |
| 12 | Lyminge Kent | A− | 3.5 | 83% | 2.1 | 90% |
| 13 | Little Haywood Staffordshire | A− | 1.3 | 100% | 3.3 | 34% |
| 14 | Kirkby Lonsdale Cumbria | B+ | 9.2 | 74% | 2.2 | 40% |
| 15 | Pontesbury Shropshire | B+ | 3.1 | 63% | 3.8 | 28% |
| 16 | Highnam Gloucestershire | B+ | 12 | 100% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 17 | Polesworth Warwickshire | B+ | 13.5 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 18 | Wingates Greater Manchester | B+ | 2.6 | 100% | 3.2 | 0% |
| 19 | Ingoldmells Lincolnshire | B+ | 2.8 | 83% | 2.3 | 0% |
| 20 | Southgate West Glamorgan | B+ | 1.1 | 21% | 3.7 | 56% |
| 21 | Chinley Derbyshire | B+ | 1.2 | 78% | 4.4 | 53% |
| 22 | Partridge Green West Sussex | B | 2.1 | 100% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 23 | Shurdington Gloucestershire | B | 2.7 | 47% | 3.3 | 42% |
| 24 | Wrotham Kent | B | 1.6 | 100% | 1.6 | 49% |
| 25 | Beare Green Surrey | B | 1.6 | 70% | 3.9 | 30% |
| 26 | Stanwick Northamptonshire | B− | 7.9 | 82% | 2.3 | 0% |
| 27 | Dilton Marsh Wiltshire | B− | 2.1 | 67% | 3.5 | 4% |
| 28 | Hutton Cranswick East Riding of Yorkshire | B− | 5 | 100% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 29 | Wrea Green Lancashire | B− | 3.5 | 100% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 30 | Whitland Dyfed | B− | 4.4 | 100% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 31 | Wooler Northumberland | B− | 3.3 | 81% | 0.8 | 26% |
| 32 | Stow-on-the-Wold Gloucestershire | B− | 3.4 | 64% | 1.2 | 88% |
| 33 | Oxenhope West Yorkshire | B− | 1.8 | 80% | 4.5 | 0% |
| 34 | Leeswood Clwyd | C+ | 4 | 83% | 0.7 | 2% |
| 35 | Wickham Bishops Essex | C+ | 3.4 | 91% | 1.8 | 0% |
| 36 | Hockley Heath West Midlands | C+ | 2.6 | 86% | 2.5 | 0% |
| 37 | Northiam East Sussex | C+ | 2.2 | 76% | 0.8 | 100% |
| 38 | Stratton Cornwall | C+ | 0.8 | 23% | 3 | 8% |
| 39 | High Spen Tyne and Wear | C+ | 3.3 | 74% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 40 | Hatton Warwickshire | C | 1.6 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 41 | Ramsden Heath Essex | C | 2.3 | 82% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 42 | Presteigne Powys | C | 3.2 | 61% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 43 | Sleights North Yorkshire | C | 0.9 | 30% | 1.5 | 80% |
| 44 | Rode Heath Cheshire | C | 0.9 | 100% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 45 | Newton Poppleford Devon | C | 1.4 | 44% | 2.3 | 60% |
| 46 | Barrow Suffolk | C− | 1.1 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 47 | Chivenor and Wrafton Devon | C− | 0.6 | 0% | 1.7 | 17% |
| 48 | Black Notley Essex | C− | 1.6 | 36% | 3.9 | 0% |
| 49 | Littlethorpe Leicestershire | C− | 0.4 | 57% | 4.7 | 0% |
| 50 | Stocksfield Northumberland | C− | 2.2 | 40% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 51 | Brompton-on-Swale North Yorkshire | D | 2.1 | 71% | 1.4 | 0% |
| 52 | Manby Lincolnshire | D | 1.4 | 68% | 0.8 | 2% |
| 53 | Cropwell Bishop Nottinghamshire | D | 0.7 | 45% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 54 | Hutton Rudby North Yorkshire | D | 1.6 | 35% | 1.1 | 13% |
| 55 | Little Plumstead Norfolk | D | 0.6 | 64% | 1 | 16% |
| 56 | Shawbury Shropshire | D− | 2.2 | 30% | 0.9 | 0% |
| 57 | Wheldrake North Yorkshire | D− | 1.4 | 72% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 58 | Colnbrook Berkshire | D− | 0.6 | 68% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 59 | Goostrey Cheshire | D− | 0.3 | 42% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 60 | Shippon Oxfordshire | D− | 0.4 | 0% | 2 | 0% |
Parks, footpaths & countryside
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Sleights’ built-up area.
3 in 10 Sleights residents live within a 5-minute walk of a park
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
About 1,300 people live further than that. Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees.
National Parks and National Landscapes around Sleights
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
North York Moors
80% of the land within 5 km of Sleights is National Park or National Landscape, more than 97% of UK towns. North York Moors National Park covers 1,441 km² and has been a National Park since 1952.
Sleights is on the Coast to Coast Walk
18 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Sleights and the kilometre around it, 1.5 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
The Coast to Coast Walk, a national route, passes Sleights. The regional route here is the Esk Valley Walk.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
The best walking months in Sleights: May to September
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 7.8 | 9.6 | 11.7 | 14.0 | 16.0 | 17.2 | 16.7 | 14.9 | 12.6 | 10.4 | 8.4 | 7.3 |
| High (°C) | 7 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 14 | 10 | 7 |
| Rain (mm) | 61 | 50 | 44 | 47 | 41 | 62 | 52 | 61 | 58 | 64 | 80 | 72 |
May is the driest month (41 mm) and July the warmest (highs of 20 °C). Winter days are short, about 7 hours of daylight in December, and 80 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 39 nights a year. The climate in Sleights →
Sleights is near the sea
9% of the area within 5 km of Sleights is sea. 4 beaches are mapped within 5 km, 1 with a name.
The Coast to Coast Walk passes the town.
Sea: the area outside the ONS coastline (mean high water). Bathing water quality is published by the Environment Agency (England) and Natural Resources Wales; check it before swimming.
3 viewpoints and 2 playgrounds
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
Every named place, with directions
Nature reserves 1
Playgrounds 2
Plus 2 playgrounds without a name on the map.
The outdoors in nearby towns
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
Whitby, 2.5 miles away, grades A+, the best next door: every resident lives within 400 m of a park. Whitby and Loftus have at least twice Sleights’ green space per resident.
Questions about the outdoors in Sleights
Is Sleights near a National Park?
North York Moors National Park reaches the edge of Sleights. It covers 1,441 km² and has been a National Park since 1952.
What are the best walks near Sleights?
2 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the village, including the Esk Valley Walk and Coast to Coast Walk (Richmond to Robin Hood’s Bay).
How many people in Sleights live near a park?
30% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
When is the best time of year for walking in Sleights?
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Is Sleights good for walking?
Paths are thinner than most towns: 1.5 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 18% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 11% (0.9 ha per 1,000 residents).
How is the Outdoors Grade worked out?
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Sleights’ overall grade.
Where Sleights’ outdoors figures come from
- Parks and green space: Ordnance Survey OS Open Greenspace (parks and gardens, playing fields, play spaces, and their access points). Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- National Parks and National Landscapes: Natural England and Natural Resources Wales boundaries, areas and designation dates, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Footpaths, walking routes, beaches and things to do: © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License (ODbL), via Geofabrik, 16 October 2026.
- Historic parks, listed buildings and monuments: Historic England, National Heritage List for England, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rain and temperature: Met Office HadUK-Grid 1991–2020 averages for the town; daylight calculated from its latitude.
- The sea: ONS Countries (December 2024) boundaries clipped to mean high water. Residents near a park: ONS Census 2021 output areas.
- Grade: TownRatings’ Outdoors Grade, ranked against UK towns only.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.