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Least Favourite English Town

Corby - an indescribable shit heap.

Great Yarmouth is horrific even though it has a large sandy beach.

Others: Telford, Stoke and Newcastle under Lyme, Walsall, Northampton, Bedford, Warrington, Basildon, Slough.

Telford and Stoke are definitely up there (I've lived in Telford). I'm trying to remember the name of a particularly grim town I once visited near leominster.  Again one of those grim towns surrounded by beautiful countryside.

 

Everything outside of London in the UK is crap and a waste of time. 8 million people live in London. 

About 30 million are over 50, 20 million over 60, so they retire to live out their lives in obscurity outside London because they can't afford to live there or are generally too uneducated to have ever worked there.

End of thread.

Never been to Corby. 

My hypothesis is that the real true shitholes are in southern England. Both Gillingham and Dover are absolutely dire places.

The shout above for Redruth is not a bad call, and its neighbour Camborne - inland Cornish towns are pretty grim  - see also Bodmin, but at least they are all close to the beautiful coasts.

Why are there so many crap towns? 

De-industrialisation, globalisation, the internet has rendered many small to midsize town largely pointless in their own right as there is not much local industry and many of the goods and services which used to be provided by the small to midsize town can be better provided centrally or nationally. Why shop in a shitty clothes shop in Stoke if you can order nicer better stuff for less over the internet?

 

Another vote for Corby. It's got all the worst bits of Glasgow and none of the nice architecture.

Saunthorpe is pretty grim too. As is Newport in Wales.

All former steel towns that haven't really adjusted to life after a single massive employer.

Another vote for Aldershot. To me, it symbolised to me all of the lobotomised backwardness, institutionalisation and infantilisation inherent in the British Army. That's probably not the town's fault, but nonetheless it has 'Army' inextricably embedded within it, like the words embedded within Blackpool rock.

The Tata plant in Corby is a fraction of the size of the original British Steel works. It employs less than 10% of the people that BS did at the peak in the 80's.

And it's still a shithole.

Some of the South Wales post industrial Valleys towns are really grim and post apocalypse stuff.  Pontypridd, Merthyr Tydfil, Cwmbran, Pontypool places like that.  Cardiff is a bustling City and fine, Swansea is improved and so-so.  But Newport (which has been mentioned) is pretty bad though nothing compared to the Valleys proper as at least it's a Bristol/Cardiff commuter place.  Just no real reason for those places to exist any more unfortunately.

Being from Cheshire originally (Chester) I'm in the Crewe is grim camp myself though it's not as bad as Runcorn or Widnes if you count those as being in the old Cheshire.  Stockton and Corby are very bad agreed.  Add in Hastings, Luton, Slough and Gillingham nearer to London.

Despite being from Stoke I have no beef with people thinking of it as a shithole.

I do however object to its description as a 'town', bearing in mind a population of quarter of a million (more if you include Newcastle-under-Lyme next door) and its city status since way back (about 100 years ago since you ask...)

Surprised Kidderminster aka Kidder aka Kiddy hadn't already been included - although it may have slightly more charm than Redditch including a statue by a statue of Rowland Hill by Thomas Brock the sculptor who did the Victoria Memorial. 

Kiddy is saved I'd say by the Severn Valley Railway, it's station and the pub in the station plus the top notch food and soup at Aggborough the football ground.  Otherwise yes a dump.

Good shout on the severn valley railway! - it is amazing if anyone get the chance I cant recommend it enough.

I miss the sugar beet towers though - hasn't been the same since. 

Also love the fact that the victorians split the river stour that goes through the town centre into two so the carpet mills could pump more waste and dye in to them - those were the days!

Strongly recommend the Severn Valley railway if anyone gets chance as well.  Beautiful scenery and Bridgnorth at the other end is a very nice town indeed (on two levels - an upper and lower town connected by a cable car type railway; well worth going to).

I had no idea Cheshire had plenty of rough areas . Are they properly rough or roughy by Cheshire standards. I assumed everywhere was like Alderley Edge or Prestbury?

Winsford (good call by Tom earlier), Runcorn and Widnes are pretty rough.  They aren't inner city London/Liverpool/Brum/Nottingham rough though.  Partly rough but partly just very grim.  Crewe and Ellesmere Port are probably more grim than rough.

Just pointing out the fine city of Peterborough, and home to the mighty Posh, needs to be removed from this list of shit towns.

Of course if there was a list of shit cities I would be on much weaker ground...

Probably not by much.  Not been to Wigan for 25 years or so since I lived oop North.  So don't know really but at that time it has a bit more spirit about it than some of the other Manc commuter/satellite towns like Bolton and Rochdale.  Or Oldham, now Oldham really was a dump.  Doubt it's improved.

Bury though is surprisingly leafy and had/has a great market; Bury is/was quite a bit nicer than you'd expect.

Tiverton. I thought, it's Devon, it must be nice, get a cream tea etc. Turned out to be the venue for a mobility scooter grand prix, or so it seemed. The supermarket sold 3L bottles of strong cider for about 50p.

I think the mark of a really crap town is whether you feel safe going out at night. I did a trip to Llanelli and was advised by a Welsh colleague that London hoorays may not be welcomed by the locals.

My wife is from Armley, and that is quite some suburb when it comes to the crap stakes. 

this is a niche one - anyone ever been to Bromyard? Interesting place - it is a text book example of the decline of regional english towns. 

No different to Ross or Kington or Leominster.  Agriculture isn't a mass employer and agricultural supplies (eg markets and abattoirs have been centralised), too far from London to do 3 days WFH, broadband is rubbish and the people who live there are the elderly or tattooed knuckledraggers.

A brother of mine was manager of a pub in Wigan. Went there for opening night during which I saw a man throw himself through a window rather than be shown out by the doorman, I was then threatened by a woman under 5' tall and then a 6' woman started drunkenly talking to me about a magic dog.

Town really is a dive

Wigan’s not as bad as people make out.  There’s some proper rough bits but nowhere near as bad as most cities’ rough bits.  And there’s lots of nice countryside nearby and decent parts to live in.  They are making an effort with bars and restaurants too.  It’s just a large town built around industry that was then ripped out, like so many places.  Easy to be snobby about.

So true... but I dont understand why these towns can't develop Hidden Champions like Germany (wirecard aside) that would give something back to the local community.

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