What's the crappiest place in the UK?

[devexwarrior]

What made them call a place Ghoul?

I knew a girl in the Army from Goole. She was known (with passing acknowledgement to a certain Macc Lads song) as Julie the Goolie!

 

[devexwarrior]

The list must be England only.
I once went to Rhyl in North Wales and came away feeling that part of my soul had been sucked out. It not on the list but perhaps no one has survived long enough to make a full appraisal.

I worked with a bloke who began his policing career in Rhyl. Some of the stories he told were scarcely credible. I went there for a day in high summer with the family as we passed by. Definitely one of those places you stop for a pee, a bag of chips and a leg stretch but leave before it gets dark!

 

[will4009]

Rhyl.

 

[Clint]

But like I remember it was once a very nice place.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I loved Rhyl holidays when i was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Look at the North Wales seaside town of Rhyl. Absolutely heaving probably from the 50's to the early 80's. Millions of visitors spending millions of pounds. In recent years its started a regeneration programme as it went into huge unemployment, drugs and degradation.
My question is...where did all the money go? It certainly wasn't invested back into the community. Or maybe the business owners invested it elsewhere. True,package holidays abroad killed a lot of UK trade but you only have to look at areas in Devon and Cornwall to see what's achievable.

Apologies if i've misunderstood (ive had a few) but I wouldn't advocate emulating what Devon and Cornwall have done. Second home ownership has destroyed the soul of towns and villages here. There has since been massive building of new homes, prices still out of reach of locals on farm land, flood plains etc etc. The builds are known to be shoddy, tons of them have had issues, the local area can't cope with the influx, no dentists, doctors, hospitals etc. The bubble will burst here, I have no idea why people come down here for a holiday.

 

[Pete9586]

Bolton! I went there once and all I saw was lots of youth standing around like statues off their tits on zombie drug, spice I think! Very grim dirty place. Won’t be going there again!

 

[Griff097]

Apologies if i've misunderstood (ive had a few) but I wouldn't advocate emulating what Devon and Cornwall have done. Second home ownership has destroyed the soul of towns and villages here. There has since been massive building of new homes, prices still out of reach of locals on farm land, flood plains etc etc. The builds are known to be shoddy, tons of them have had issues, the local area can't cope with the influx, no dentists, doctors, hospitals etc. The bubble will burst here, I have no idea why people come down here for a holiday.

We were down there last week for the beautiful views and seaside locations in the camper

 

[BlackRegent]

I don't understand this thread. We live in a country with such a rich history and varied geography that I'd wager every town maligned in these posts has something beautiful and unique.

When we speak of a town being 'crap' really what we're talking about is a lack of money, investment and opportunity. The town itself might have a lot to offer.

I'm fortunate enough to have travelled a lot round the UK and I've been to many of the places listed here. Let me pick a few to make my point.

Morecambe - there is little more stunning than Morecambe bay on a bright, clear day with views out to the hills and mountains of the lake district.

Bolton - Le Mans Crescent, a classical revival beauty

Holyhead - a short walk out of town takes you to the clifftop walks of Breakwater Country Park. Walk a bit further and climb Holyhead mountain.

Bradford - the most amazing town hall with its Venetian gothic clock tower.

If you think somewhere's a ********, it's because you haven't looked hard enough.

 

[RichardM]

I don't understand this thread. We live in a country with such a rich history and varied geography that I'd wager every town maligned in these posts has something beautiful and unique.

When we speak of a town being 'crap' really what we're talking about is a lack of money, investment and opportunity. The town itself might have a lot to offer.

I'm fortunate enough to have travelled a lot round the UK and I've been to many of the places listed here. Let me pick a few to make my point.

Morecambe - there is little more stunning than Morecambe bay on a bright, clear day with views out to the hills and mountains of the lake district.

Bolton - Le Mans Crescent, a classical revival beauty

Holyhead - a short walk out of town takes you to the clifftop walks of Breakwater Country Park. Walk a bit further and climb Holyhead mountain.

Bradford - the most amazing town hall with its Venetian gothic clock tower.

If you think somewhere's a ********, it's because you haven't looked hard enough.

But would you want to live in any of them?

 

[prog99]

Canterbury worse than Hull and Chichester worse than Doncaster? Utter crap.

And middlesbrough not top? I've never visited a town with a sulphuric acid factory so close to a residential district.

 

[BlackRegent]

But would you want to live in any of them?

It's impossible to answer that question honestly because it's contextual. Would I uproot my family to go and live in Hull or any other of these places? Obviously not, but that's because we're settled where we are and have no reason to live there. Would I rule it out if I was single and was offered a job there? Depends on the job I guess, but no, I wouldn't rule it out.

 

[Kit-brewer]

I was born in Burton On Trent, some areas were beautiful. But my lasting memories are of getting of the train going home for a weekend and the smell! Not only of tje breweries, but also the pork pie factory. In the summer the whole town stank!

 

[Keith 66]

Come to Southend in summer it stinks of skunk weed, as do a lot of other places!

 

[itry]

I offer up aldershot. Commonly known as aldershite. Closed down shops. Infested with pound shops. All buildings in need of maintenance. Looks like it's never been cared for. Even the pigeons fly upside down because their is nothing worth shitting on. Their is other issues but these are the friendliest

 

[S.R.S]

Nice place though but great name - crapstone, a village in Devon aka sh..rock

 

[Desi_Rable]

Why not list nicest but least known places. Imagine living in one of the towns listed as worst and reading this thread.. First and last look at this forum.

Because I do live in one of the towns listed as worst, and wonder why it isn't higher on the list; whilst all of the places I've ever stayed in, excluding places in London, are all on that list too. Being limited exclusively to public transport, and not nearly as well-travelled as I'd like, I don't have that required level of personal experience when it comes to "nicest but least known" places, even in passing. If you've got candidates in mind though, perhaps you could get that thread started?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If you've got candidates in mind though, perhaps you could get that thread started?

When he said it was his first and last look at the forum (quote below) he was not bluffing he posted on Saturday at 7:48 AM and logged off.

pauljohnstoneuk
New Member
Joined Friday at 4:12 PM
Last seen Saturday at 7:48 AM

Why not list nicest but least known places. Imagine living in one of the towns listed as worst and reading this thread.. First and last look at this forum.

 

[An Ankoù]

Why not list nicest but least known places. Imagine living in one of the towns listed as worst and reading this thread.. First and last look at this forum.

Not a good idea PJS. They're nice because nobody knows about them. As soon as they become known, they'll become infested with East Ender types, ruining the pubs and buying all the property for second homes. Look at much of Cornwall and Worth Matravers in Dorset.
Best get your little piece of heaven listed on the crap list and breath a sigh of relief. X

 

[Desi_Rable]

If it hasn't already been addressed (too many posts to read through), focusing on subpar areas accomplishes, as a whole, nothing unless, in the same breath, you find out what can legitimately be done to improve the area with realistic solutions.
Simply, it is quite like society to watch a person toss a piece of trash on the street and litter and then complain, "Oh, look, that person just littered," and do nothing. That's being a spectator and is an non-optimum state of being.
Pick up the trash. Provide a solution.

Well, at least in one regard, there's been a teensy-tiny bit of progress in this town recently.

Slough chief executive Josie Wragg sacked for "gross misconduct"

Too bad it's a drop in the ocean compared to everything else that's been going on here, and greatly contributed towards the continuing decline of the area...

'Rich list' reveals 2,500 council bosses earning £100k - and some get six times that
UK: Labour-run Slough council declares bankruptcy after failed commercial deals
Days after an election, council reveals 90% of its savings have disappeared
Slough Borough Council considers selling £600m worth of assets
What do the two damning reports say about Slough Council? - What's On In Windsor & Slough
Slough council leader's resignation rejected by Labour group amid cash woes

When a town's had the highest paid government officials in the country for the past decade (BoJo and all his cronies included), only to declare bankruptcy, having had a total alloted annual budget of under £150M, but "mismanaged" (i.e, embellezed) so much of their finances over the years that they've got a financial 'black hole' that's now known to stand at almost £480M as of right now (compared to the "£94M by 2025" estimate at the time when they declared bankruptcy, and "£174M by 2025" a couple of months after that) on top of borrowing debts of £760M (+an extra £36M today), in spite of having also accumulated over £1.2Bn worth of acquired property assets in that time, across the country and internationally.

If you've seen The Batman yet, you'll get the reference- "Renewal is a Lie". At least in that movie's Gotham, the 'Gotham Renewal Fund' was only $1 Billion US- a single philantropist's charitable donation, which got mis-appropriated by the mob and by corrupt local government officials instead of going towards the urban renewal of a city with a population of several million people. In Slough though, IRL, there's been more than twice that sum, sourced directly from local taxpayers and via criminal levels of borrowing instead, that's all been ploughed into the Slough Urban Renewal Fund, half owned by the council and half by Morgan Sindall- almost £2bn (up from the £1bn quoted when the contract was awarded), in a town with a population of c.160k.

Even if our council had been doing what they were supposed to have been doing, Slough already had the lowest public spending per capita of any borough in the entire UK, of less than £10k per capita. As it turns out though, since more than half of those funds were being spent upon "investments" (including one purchased from several of the council members' own increasingly extensive property portfolios, at extortionate above-market prices) or misappropriated under the premise of the 'Slough Urban Renewal Fund' all along, has been less than half of that- meaning that the actual government funding going towards the area and the people who live here in Slough's been under £5k per capita all along, comparable to those of nations like Barbados, Cuba, Latvia and Venezuela. And it shows...