Worse places than Wolverhampton in Britain and Europe

[Balderdasha]

The woman named in this story was in my class: https://www.haverhillecho.co.uk/news...arges-9077412/

She was terribly neglected as a child, didn't really stand a chance.

[3 Colours Red]

So ... Weston-super-Mare. Half the size of Wrexham, almost definitely more smackheads.

You almost make me want to go there. Maths was my best subject by far in school but I'm struggling to get my head around those numbers.

[Nefertiti2]

.... Screwfix when I needed to get steel toe-cap boots

Am I the only person wondering about the Balderdasha story behind this...?

[Balderdasha]

This is the guy I was actually trying to find: https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/haverhil...iled-1-1379969

[Balderdasha]

Here he is on the roof a couple of years earlier: http://www.haverhill-uk.com/news/two...glary-2355.htm

[Balderdasha]

As you can tell from this much earlier story, he also didn't have an easy home life: http://www.haverhill-uk.com/news/jai...terror-764.htm

[blameless]

My girlfriend thinks my hometown is lovely, but she's only really seen the park and castle by the sea, the quaint Harbour at Dysart, the very good art gallery and pleasant enough late 19th century tenements and cottages. The full dereliction of the high st, the sheer fuck all to do, not even a cinema in the town, will have to await another visit to Kirkcaldy.

Or alternatively you could take her to Methil and Glenrothes, and she'll come away thinking Kirkcaldy's on a par with Monte Carlo.

Speaking of Glenrothes, the UK has any number of badly planned new towns that qualify as being worse than Wulvramptun - Cumbernauld, Livingston, Telford, Runcorn, and the pièce de shitstance - Crawley.

[George C.]

Good call, Redditch and Peterlee can be added to the list, the latter already mentioned.
Oh and Great Yarmouth is apparently grim according to a Norfolk contact.

Finally Canvey Island must be close to the top 20?

[Stumpy Pepys]

No mention of Skelmersdale yet?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The funny thing about the new towns like Stevenage or Skem is that they're not actually that rough. Some of the residents are, certainly, but most of the housing is 60s-70s built and usually quite well maintained, especially by housing associations, and by and large the estates are leafy, open and pleasant, normally built to that standard design of a few hundred houses, a primary school, an arcade of shops and a pub (always with a triangular roof). It's the inner city bits of places that have never 'gentrified' or whatever that expression is that always feel grimmer. Preston city centre is now far rougher than the newer estates that sprang up around it in the 70s, even though they were built precisely to house the people who couldn't afford the redbrick terraces in the city.

[ursus arctos]

There is a namesake of Balders' hometown in Massachusetts, not far from Boston

It has also seen its share of challenges in recent decades after once producing one out of every ten shoes made in this country.

[Flynnie]

There is a namesake of Balders' hometown in Massachusetts, not far from Boston

It has also seen its share of challenges in recent decades after once producing one out of every ten shoes made in this country.

I've mentioned this here before but New England's Rust Belt-iness is not acknowledged enough. The decline of the mills just fucked huge parts of New England.

The list is not short: Bridgeport (my father's hometown), New Britain, Bristol, Hartford, Springfield, Fall River, Lowell, Worcester, Lawrence, Haverhill, Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Lewiston (where my father's family first settled after leaving West Cork, and there's a lot of people with my surname still floating around there - so likely my distant cousins) are all places that have seen far better days. Some places have semi-reinvented themselves as affordable bedroom suburbs of Boston or remain afloat thanks to one industry (Bristol being the home of ESPN), but they're in a minority.

And New England was the first place where people noticed the now-epidemic of white kids on smack. Everybody in Fall River being on Oxy or heroin is at least 25 years old now.

[seand]

There is a namesake of Balders' hometown in Massachusetts, not far from Boston

It has also seen its share of challenges in recent decades after once producing one out of every ten shoes made in this country.

Producing ONE shoe out of every ten? There's your problem right there.

[Balderdasha]

There is a namesake of Balders' hometown in Massachusetts, not far from Boston

It has also seen its share of challenges in recent decades after once producing one out of every ten shoes made in this country.

My choir did an exchange trip there when I was about 15. I didn't go because at the time I was adamant I'd never set foot on a plane. One of my few regrets.

[The Mighty Trin]

Jaywick Sands has had a lot of negative British press commentary recently. Anyone ever been? I've been to nearby Clacton, which at least has a pier and I fucking love piers.

Having said that, I'd add off-season triple-piered Blackpool to the list. And Bridlington, both because my Dad desperately wanted to get me interested in fishing and so I got dragged there. He once got the 'bonus' of a free two week November holiday in Bridlington as his boss owned a hotel there. Oh the luxury...

My parents honeymooned in Scarborough, but when I've been there it's never felt as run down as Blackpool or Brid.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I always desperately want to join in on these threads, which appear not infrequently, but usually feel that I haven't travelled to enough crapholes in my time and, if I have been somewhere dreadful, tend to take the view that as I'm only seeing a small part of the place I really shouldn't generalise about the rest of the town or city.

Therefore, restricting myself to London, and bearing in mind that my views of at lot of these places is frozen in the 1990s, I'd happily chuck in Walworth, Bermondsey, & Poplar. Stratford was as moody as fuck and Custom House looked like it had just endured a particularly brutal civil war.

They're probably all lovely now.

A friend once went to Mansfield and was still in a state of shock weeks afterwards.

[Sporting]

I always desperately want to join in on these threads, which appear not infrequently, but usually feel that I haven't travelled to enough crapholes in my time and, if I have been somewhere dreadful, tend to take the view that as I'm only seeing a small part of the place I really shouldn't generalise about the rest of the town

Very good point. I was in Cardiff for two years but had I only spent two hours around closing time in the centre on a Saturday night my positive opinion of the city might very easily have been reversed.

[Patrick Thistle]

I had a very negative experience of visiting Dublin but anyone I have ever mentioned this to has loudly told me that I WAS WRONG.

[Southport Zeb]

No mention of Skelmersdale yet?

There is a fairly new Parkrun going through the middle of Skem. The first half is what you'd expect - going through underpasses and round the back of housing estates. However the second half is surprisingly nice, going through the woods along the River Tawd.

[Hot Pepsi]

That site says "Haverhill might well date back to pre-Roman times, but this forward thinking, rapidly developing town is very much part of the 21st century."

[Hot Pepsi]

Very good point. I was in Cardiff for two years but had I only spent two hours around closing time in the centre on a Saturday night my positive opinion of the city might very easily have been reversed.

Are there any towns in the UK (or anywhere?) whose town center/main street/high street isn't struggling, at least a bit?

[ursus arctos]

Chipping Norton?

Various oligarch friendly parts of London?

The posh bits of Cheshire full of footballers?

[Hot Pepsi]

As it turns out, my parents are in the Cotswolds right now. They really like it there.


Actually, our downtown is doing pretty well. There's always some turnover and it's not like the days when there were hardware stores and car dealerships downtown, but the student population keeps it vibrant.

The shops that have survived do so by offering excellent service. And some of the smaller towns around are seeing their downtowns come back a bit. A lot of people just like the idea of walking around a town center and getting coffee from someplace that isn't a chain or a glorified gas station.

[ursus arctos]

It is undeniably pretty

[Furtho]

Chipping Norton isn't all that posh - you're perhaps thinking of Chipping Campden.