Worst town in Britain

ebygomm I used to work a bit in Kirkby. Lots of depression.

Brynmawr is a lot better than Winches and the Coike estates I lived there till I was 4 🙂

kinda666 – Member
Moved to Wolvo now so no better off! Coalpool was once dubbed the worst estate in England, Bet Goscote was 2nd!

Blakenhall (Goscote and Coalpool) just topped a survey of the most deprived areas in Britain!

(Knew i should have moved my office off Goscote road!) Could p*ss on Coalpool if i didnt think i would loose my d**k!

Just off to re-evaluate my life choices! 😐

By and large, all the places mentioned are former industrial towns, where someone in government or big business decided, with the stroke of a pen, to condemn for generations. Thats what leaves a bit of a sour taste about threads like these.
Me? I'd rather live in some of the listed places rather than some middle class commuter ghetto.

There are lots of awful places in England and Wales but really nothing compares to many towns in Scotland, especially the Glasgow/Clyde areas.

I spent 10 years in the smoke living in Hounslow (pronounced arnsla)

Grim, almost London but not quite.

Barrow in Furness takes some beating, total $h1t h0l£

My wifes Aunt lives in Milton, went on the bus from glasgow, er not that bad! 😕

Todmorden,a 30,s throwback town,2 chip shops,the wooden ones nice,a great big railway bridge,some big hills and a canal,and thats it.
Everyone disapears after 5.00pm,or darkness whichever comes first.

Enough of all the Bridgwater comments (and please spell it correctly!) – it's not that bad, and the cellophane factory shut years ago!! Lived there for 6 years before moving to Didcot … and don't even think of starting on Didcot!!

Wilenhall has gone down hill since the afghans moved in

Thought that would of raised it up a bit?

achnasheen

Click on this thing to make a clicking noise and see achnasheen

ebygomm I used to work a bit in Kirkby

I work in Kirkby right now :-S

3 pages and nobody has mention my home town of Sunny Scunny, a truly vile place but has a lot of nice people, I blame that Thatcher Bitch.

+1 for Brownhills

Larkhall is grim. The council spend £15k a year there to replace broken bulbs in the traffic lights. The locals don't like it when they turn green. There was also a local campaign to get the ASDA logo in blue instead of green. It's the only town I've biked through and got bottles thrown at me by neds rather than just insults so it must be bad 🙂

By and large, all the places mentioned are former industrial towns, where someone in government or big business decided, with the stroke of a pen, to condemn for generations. Thats what leaves a bit of a sour taste about threads like these.
Me? I'd rather live in some of the listed places rather than some middle class commuter ghetto.

Course you would. Keeping it real, right up until the point that your bike gets nicked (again), your house is broken into for the second time in as many months, just as you've replaced all the stuff that was nicked the last time, your kid finds a used needle in the park, or your wife gets mugged on the street outside your house.

Then, if you've got the opportunity, you'd be out of there like a bat out of hell, just like everyone else with half a brain.

Millom in cumbria.A local place for local people.And if your not local you will end up in the special stuff 😯

aaah millom. Didn't a chap get caught running his drugs empire from an ice cream van there?

"Can i have a 99, two Orange Maid's and a henry please."

Kramer,I've lived in some fairly rough parts of Scotland, I stand by my comments.

Bo'ness.

Not all of it is boarded up. Some of it has been burnt down instead.

aaah millom. Didn't a chap get caught running his drugs empire from an ice cream van there

It wouldn't surprise me 🙄

I lived smak bang between Wigan and St Helens. St Helens is by far the worst, but Skelmersdale is even worse than both by far!

Thing is there's aweful places everywhere, up north and down south. In scotland they seem to be literaly on the doorstep of the richest places, similarly in the north of england, but down south it seems more common to fence areas off and forget they exist.

Bristol outskirts make glasgows outskirts look like a kids play park.

St Helens was where I grew up. Living there in the 80s & 90s, the town didn't have the absolute 'grimness' or feeling of menace that other places I've visited(different to living somewhere for 20 years) have -just a fairly parochial attitude from a lot of the people.
It has been tidied up a bit in recent years, but I do find the town centre a bit depressing on my occasional visits. Of course there are nice parts, and much of the borough is actually quite green/rural.

As has been said, many other towns are similar. They all have the poor, the people in the middle(the old 'respectable' working class who's off-spring have become successively better off, probably including many of the people on here)and the well-off, just in different proportions.

Even Leigh has some nice areas and just outside Kirkby there are large arable farms.

Liverpool gets a terrible press, but it is no worse than other cities.

From what I've seen, the worst places are those that are very insular. Having little opportunity leads to a narrow view of the world, which makes ignorance a virtue and then breeds contempt for education and people from outside and so the cycle continues.

I'd Second Redruth, if it weren't for the existence of Mount Ambrose, and some bits on the Roseland are quite bad, and then there is Coombe, a 10-15 minute ride from Truro, but deep in duelling banjos territory (those are villages though).

Still not as shitty as Port Talbot though.

Bogside-Derry
Sandy Row-Belfast
Wick
Tillidrone-Aberdeen
Glenrothes
Wester Hailes-Edinburgh
Pollockshields-Glasgow
+1 for Blyth
Whitehaven
Will get back to you all for the Southern section!

Batley runs its near neighbour Dewsbury pretty close.

I agree Batley is not the best but I've worked in far far shitier places. Some areas of Leeds and villages in South Wales, Batley is not even close to those places.
(I was born in Batley by the way)

Middleton. The highest proportion of broken limbs and the lowest proportion of teeth and distant relatives.

I work in Kirkby right now :-S

I spent my formative years in Fazakerley, a couple of miles up the road.
Some grim aspects bu pretty much typical of many larger cities, good and bad areas.

Just some observations:

1. Are we including Cities? there is a difference between a city, town and village. or are we just stating worst places
2. It seems from teh places mentioned that must places that are good for riding are in and around crap places!
3. Channel 4 voted for Hull in the first series of the show.
4. London is by far the single most over rated place to live in Britian, its expensive and crap.
5. Cocking gets my vote, I have never been but if if I lived there I would n't tell anyone. "So where to come from?"
"I'm from cocking"

Are we including Cities? there is a difference between a city, town and village. or are we just stating worst places

Strictly speaking towns however lets bring the city of Liverpool into the mix as its always good to slag it off.

Todmorden doesn't even come close to being the worst. Not by a looooooong way. You only have to go down the road to Burnley to see that.

Lots of the Valley's. methyr etc.. are terrible. More social assistance than the old Soviet Union. Truly depressing places.

Scariest place ever Belfast a few years ago. My shaven head and english accent, then being asked if you are "army" in very menacing tones. Much better now.

I travel all over the UK and I think that many places are similarly disadvantaged, clearly massive imabalances in the UK (although MTB'ing is doing it's small bit for some parts of Wales). People in deepest leafy Surrey (where I live) have no idea about the rest of the UK. Many here have never visited much of the UK.

Any town within 10 miles of the M8 is to be avoided, it's a personal rule. Although I do venture into Bo'ness at times to see a friend, its fine if you know somebody local.

The worst town I have ever had the bad luck to spend any time in is Livingston, worked there for 6 months. Went to a meeting on the top floor of the council headquarters, the car park at ASDA below was full at 2pm. Everyone there between 8-6 weekdays either works for the council/federal govt or is dependent on it for a benefit. Everyone else drives to Edinburgh or Glasgow to contribute to the economy. Total dump with low quality housing and serried ranks of pointless roundabouts.

Was ready to slash my wrists, quit that job as soon as was decent.

either Sheffield (if cities are allowed) or Rhyl.

+1 Newquay – nice beaches if you looking out to sea, but full of pissed up staggers & hen parties & teenage stoodents and the place is an abosolute rip off.

Crawley – proper southern sh1te hole (chav city)

I can't believe that Sunderland isn't top of the list!

we went to morecambe once when i was young. I think I caught depression while I was there.

useless[/url]

incidentally the "national" police maps only covers englandshire. They can't count high enough yet to cover Scotland!

Its amazing how peoples views are framed from fleeting experiences or simply prejudice.

You cant judge an area unless you have spent some time there and experienced the local culture. Driving through in the dark and spotting a couple of "hoodies" doesnt count!

true, but gut instinct is usually a good indicator. how many times have you been pleasantly surprised byt a rough-looking area?