THE man who led the research declaring Warrington as the worst place in the country for making the most out of its heritage admits the town has been 'underestimated'.

Jonathan Schifferes, director at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), confirmed there has been a 'shortcoming' in the methods used to complete the Heritage Index and vowed to 'enhance' findings next year.

The study placed the town 325th but Mr Schifferes is urging residents to also take note of other key results.

"It's not as simple to say Warrington is back of the standings," he said.

"We've combined over 100 datasets - most of which were already in the public domain - in a completely new way.

"Our analysis shows that if you just look at heritage assets, across five different domains of heritage, Warrington has the lowest density within England.

"But our headline results, which place Warrington at 320 out of 325, take into account heritage activities - things like volunteering, participation rates, open days and investment.

"There are 50 places with lower levels of heritage activity, per person, than Warrington."

Mr Schifferes, who has visited the town twice in recent years, commended organisations in the area for their efforts to bring 'heritage to life'.

Warrington was found to have no areas of natural beauty but the RSA chief admitted improvements will be made to the process next year.

"No dataset is perfect," he added.

"For example, regarding canals, the source we've drawn upon excludes canals in private ownership and those that aren't navigable.

"Warrington is therefore underestimated in our analysis - but other areas will be affected by this shortcoming in the source data too.

"These kind of anomalies are inevitable when you put together a national exercise as we've done.

"We've already extended an open invitation for new and improved datasets.

"Calls for researchers to visit every district in the country to verify the data in person are unrealistic."

Mr Schifferes has accepted an invitation to speak at the Heritage Matters conference at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery on November 21.

"I look forward to that debate and I am sure I will share with others a desire to constructively focus on what kind of actions can be taken to ensure residents and visitors appreciate the history of a place and be able to feel connected to it," he added.

"That's exactly why we created the Heritage Index in the first place - using data to help identify places we can learn from which are already harnessing their assets and activities to good effect."

Council chief executive Steven Broomhead praised the measures in place to promote culture and heritage across the borough and called on residents to take note of the impressive surroundings in the town.

"I would say to people put down your mobile phones for five minutes and look up at the buildings in the town centre on Bridge Street, Buttermarket Street and Horsemarket Street," he said.

"Did you know for example there is a pelican on Buttermarket Street? That in 1648, 1,000 people were killed in the battle of Winwick post in the Civil War.

"That there are Roman ruins at Wilderspool? There there was a Norman castle at St Elphin's? And that you can still see remains of the old Burtonwood airbase.

"But I think one thing this may have taught us is to perhaps celebrate a bit more and promote more what we have in the town.”

Mr Broomhead has set a quiz for Warrington Guardian readers.

The first person to tell us where exactly in Buttermarket Street the pelican is can be his guest at the first Warrington Wolves home game of the 2016 Super League season.

E-mail answers to aran.dhillon@nqnw.co.uk