[Closed] Worst UK City

Is Peterborough a city? Learn something new hey, can't really remember my time there...

Not much worse than these in my experience than...

Bradford
Stoke
Portmouth
Middleborough
Newport

Whilst we are naming towns, there are plenty...

Skelmersdale
Bury
Rochdale
Crewe
Rhyl
Luton
Dunfermline
Rotherham
Doncaster
Widnes
Dover
Slough
Croydon
Etc etc

Peterborough is a shit hole. Bradford is too. never been to manchester so couldn't comment on that. Birmingham is ok. Been to nicer places but its scrubbed up pretty well in the last 10 years. Wolverhampton is somewhat lacking in redeeming features as is Preston but Peterborough and Bradford win hands down IMO.

Nottingham - worked there for 8 years. Poor travel links, not on mainline, horrendous links to M1, more average speed cameras than you can shake a stick at. Once drove past what I thought was a drunk sleeping it off, turned out to be a dead body. A truly horrible place and they think Robin Hood was a local lad - everyone know he's from South Yorkshire

Portsmouth trumps all.

No it doesn't. Whilst having many aspects of the very worst, it does have some significant redeeming qualities (both harbours, the solent, (most of) Southsea, Old Portsmouth, The Historic Docks and a gateway to Europe) which is more than could be said for others already mentioned.

I have no desire to live there but quite like having it down the road, which is way more than I could have said about Coventry (or Leicester) .

Slough. By miles.

Chester? Seriously... Oh no I forgot it's Mr happy making the comment 😉

London. Vile shit hole.

Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Birmingham and all it's neighboring cities, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Southampton and Portsmouth.

All these cities tie for second place. First place is obviously London, but apparently that doesn't count.

Other obvious choices to consider include Dundee, Sunderland, Wakefield and Manchester. But I actually quite like the time I spend in these places so what do I know.

Slough. By miles.

i thought we were talking about cities?

Nick1962, the Mersey runs through Liverpool and the edge of the suburbs of Manchester, you ignorant fool.

Anyone visiting the centre of Manc wouldn't even know the Mersey exists.

Plus, if the Mersey is a one of the good things about Manchester... Well, says it all really.

All cities are shit if you go to wrong bits or are there with the wrong people, I've seen great Bit's and horrible bits of, Leicester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, but I also know them all well or know people that do so tend to enjoy my time in each.

St. Davids.

The club scene is RUBBISH.

It would be interesting to understand the mindset of those proposing London. Every city, especially one the size of London, will have some scummy quarters but the mark of a truly awful one is if there are no redeeming features. You would have to be staggeringly blinkered not to acknowledge the (significantly) large number of redeeming features of London.

I always used to hate going to London. We'd go by car and after an hour of shuffling along through the delights of Catford and the south circular and I'd happily put a bomb under the place and was blind to the delights of the centre. Now I go in by train I have a totally different attitude to the place. I wouldn't want the live there as I'm just not a city dweller but it does not mean I don't recognise London as an amazing place.

<gross generalisation>Durham - a pit village with a big church, filled with Oxbridge rejects. "Oh so you got two As and a B?" </gross generalisation>

Oh my god. How could I forget Birmingham????

The centre is utterly run down and without doubt one of the most depressing places you'll ever go to. They've invested in small areas like the Bullring and the mailbox but that actually makes the rest of it worst. It's like looking at the slums of Delhi reflected in the glass towers of the rich.

Liverpool by a country mile.

London.

Liverpool - that lovely journey from the M62 to the harbour front

Can't believe nobodys mentioned Wakefield yet. Proper shithole

Hang on - isn't that pretty much every city slagged off other than Bristol 🙂

Lots of post industrial cities are dumps, like Wakefield and Middlesbrough etc but you can still live in them find the better areas and make it work as a home. But London you can't it is just an unrelenting shithole for mile and miles which devours the lives of all the misserable sods who live there. So London without a doubt.

I'd say pretty much all UK cities are horrible

I don't know the reasons behind it, but Europe seem to be able to have nice looking cities that aren't full of shit, so it can't be that hard

Lots of post industrial cities are dumps, like Wakefield and Middlesbrough etc but you can still live in them find the better areas and make it work as a home. But London you can't it is just an unrelenting shithole for mile and miles which devours the lives of all the misserable sods who live there. So London without a doubt.

So your definition of a quality (or less shit) city is your ability to eek out a tolerable life there on a middling income? I find that a little bit sad.

If you had a day off work and [b]had[/b] to spend it in a city you would rather do it in Wakefield than London?

Those thinking Peterborough and Dundee are bad need to broaden their horizons.

Not cities, but any grim northern town beginning with B is pretty horrendous

Stirling is pretty poor for a city imho

The fact that nobody has said Derby yet says it all, no one even realises it exists
But I would say Stoke just about trumps Derby
And both only because Cumbernauld isn't a city

Personally though I think all cities share similar issues, and have their good and bad points, the clincher is what is easily accessible from around the city, for example Sheffield and Manchester have the Peak District, Liverpool is in easy distance to the coast and welsh mountains, even Middlesbough, a complete shithole has the North York Moors

If you had a day off work and had to spend it in a city you would rather do it in Wakefield than London?

I could get a lot more drunk, so forget where I was, much quicker and cheaper in Wakefield (I lived just outside Wakefield for 2 years, it is pretty shit and I know how dangerous getting drunk there can be, especially on a Friday night!)

Nick1962, you charmer.

Coventry 😐

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Manchester and Birmingham are bearable but most other northern cities are very grim I'll not list them all but I have had the misfortune to visit and work in most of them, there are a few nice ones but they are mostly in the south.
Thing is most cities in the UK are just too small to feel like a city, they are just overblown towns really.

Another one for Wakefield here, although I vote London too. Its also seems like the worst city is where you live, and most cities (city centres) are pretty grim and only getting worse!

If you had a day off work and had to spend it in a city you would rather do it in Wakefield than London?

If you were to pick somewhere for a day out you would choose to visit London over Wakefield for what it has to offer tourism wise, but surely the point made above was more like would you rather live in Wakefield or London? (By the way I have lived in both)

Cities are all crap.

Their only redeeming features are to concentrate people away from the countryside so I can get some peace.

^ at least Coventry's bad buildings are still standing
I give you Derby -

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They are both prime sites in the city centre, both have been derelict for at least 10 years.
There is quite a few more like that, on street car parking in that area is around £2.10 an hour 8am-8pm 7 days a week, it's no wonder the city centre is dead

Manchester now its becoming flat city. Incimpetent Manchester council workers agreeing more flats for regeneration and rip off parking 8am-8pm illegally to prop up funds. Only Trafford council is a becon to help their community. The city are crooks IMO

but surely the point made above was more like would you rather live in Wakefield or London?

That was his point yes, but I would say it's a very inept way of judging a city. The OP's question was "what's the worst UK city?", not "what is the worst UK city to live in?". I say you simply can't put a city with the heritage, culture and variety of London at the top of the list on the basis of it being a bit shit to live in on an average income (it is imo - wouldn't trade places with my sister who does this in a million years). IF I had to live in a city and IF I was minted, London could be pretty awesome however.

[i]Coventry
[/i]

Cripes, that brings back memories. That and the Godiva. Spent years in those places. Awful, awful places.

I give you Derby -

A mere trifle...
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edit: I hadn't realised work had started again to be fair so this is presumably now a building site.

I get to travel the country with work and have visited most of the cities mentioned so far.

Live in and around Bradford for 20 years (not now) and don't really like what it has become now but I don't think it is the worst.

It also depends by what deffinition we are determining the worst?

Just looking at the picture of Bradford above also shows some of its old architecture and history so for me it can't be a 'bad' city just yet.

Having driven through, around, into and past Stoke I'd have to say there are no redeeming features of it as a city centre so that gets my vote.

Sheffield is brilliant. But I was a student there which I think helps.
Manchester is immeasurably better that it was say 30 years ago when I first worked there.
Derby? I'd forgotten who horrible that place is.
But really, London has no competition. It's foul.

I've spent 30 years travelling around the cities mentioned here, many of them are deeply depressing places to live which is why I chose to move.
What I find sadenning is the unstoppable drive within the remaining few decent places to follow the likes of Bradford, (which actually used to be very nice) etc to give up their green spaces for endless industrial squaller fed by cheap labour in the name of "growth" which is actually just a name for exchanging quality of live for many, into a lot of money for few.

Growth is another name for greed and that is what makes all these place crap.

Spent 3 years at Coventry as a student, haven't returned once.

Absolute shiiiiit hole.

Portsmouth is pretty bad, tbh. Tho as pointed out earlier there are some cool museums.

Got to agree with a few other here that the problem is we don't do cities very well over here, which is why everyone drives everywhere from their suburbs and commuter villages. Work, shop and socialise in the towns and cities but live outside.

Birmingham's is dull and soulless, it more like a large sprawling town with regenerated areas with a slug and lettuce, pizza express and a starbucks but not the worst city. Anyone saying London is just doing the irrational hatred of London, in all but the worst outer boroughs have more going on and of interest than many town and cities. Southampton and Portsmouth are grimy but no worse than 90% of small British cities / large British towns.

Bradford get my vote, but I have not been to Derby, that looks rough as a butchers dog. Bradford seemed like a right dive to me and what made it worse was the feeling of past glory, that it once was nice and was now a dive.

You're all wrong, every city mentioned so far has some redeeming qualities, (even Brum), you've just dancing round the stinking great elephant in the room, the one true answer, the apogee of grim.

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you.....

[b]LUTON[/b]

Wikipedia

...Luton is a large town

**** off London rules. The best and worst to offer. I loved it.

Got to agree with a few other here that the problem is we don't do cities very well over here, which is why everyone drives everywhere from their suburbs and commuter villages. Work, shop and socialise in the towns and cities but live outside.

Manchester grim !

So what, who cares its still got a bit of character where else has such unique street entertainment.