Is it better to host your website with someone locally even if they are a bit higher priced? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this?

Internationally, it’s not essential that a UK website is hosted in the UK, or a US one in the states, and so forth.

If you’re talking counties and the like, then no, I can’t see any reason to choose one over the other (beside price and features)

I see no advantages at all, especially if a host offers a toll free phone. I see no use in the vicinity to your host’s office, quality of their service is something that could be more valuable.

The quality of the hosting company – that is the main thing not location.

Choosing between a local and non-local host I would consider the following points:
1. Servers location.
2. Office location.
3. Seo apsects

I have a UK based domain and using the USA-based host cpwebhosting.net and never feel sorry for it.

I have read search engines do use a server’s location to filter their results, depending on the location of the search. So ‘UK’ sites in Google, for example, may be affected by sites actually hosted in the UK.