I spent my placement year at BNFL in Risley business park close by; I chose to live in Chester as hated the place!
I worked near there for two years and lived in Manchester for similar reasons! No traffic problems going out of Manchester in the mornings… 😉
Warrington is mostly a suburb of Manchester/Liverpool. It’s grown quite a lot in the last 20 years and the centre of town is much better than it used to be. Best areas are south of the Mersey and ship canal – Stockton Heath feels like a nicer part of a larger northern city, the rest of the south is suburban, and parts of the north of the town are semi-grim (though it’s still only a little town, not a big city so not too bad).
Traffic can be bad because Warrington is boxed in by motorways and any problems people drive through the town (and there aren’t many bridges).
Pubs in town centre used to be full of blokes with taches and no neck (because of rugby league) but might be less scary these days, though I doubt it.
If you live in Warrington (ask binners hes from there) you will have to support liverpool.
Or Man U, which is actually pretty close to the east of Warrington. Perhaps depends on which bit of Warrington you live in – you can certainly buy both the Liverpool Echo and the Manchester Evening News in most shops, depending on which estate you were shipped out of in the 70s.