I'm going for Broadgate Circle and Liverpool St. I work up there and walk from London Bridge everyday. Too busy, I'm always going against footfall on the way in, and on the way home. Shitty ponsing coffee shops where people get conned into paying £9 for a sandwich. Soulless place.
Crawley is utterly grim, no doubt - but it pales into insignificance when compared with Redhill. Absolute shithole of a place - topped off nicely by the stench of the landfill just up the road. Reigate is 2 miles up the road - but when I lived there it was like living on a different planet.
Interesting read. What on earth did we do wrong in this country in order to make pretty much all our town centres so appalling. Compare that to France where town centres have largely remained historic and vibrant.
Green and pleasant land indeed.
'We' didn't do anything. Supermarkets did.
Not wholly true - we voted in the councillors who gave planning consent for the wholesale destruction of many of our town centres (they had been helped somewhat by the Luftwaffe of course). Concrete precincts with little, if any, residential building seemed the way to go in the early '60s and many of the new structures were occupied by department stores, offices - many of those governmental - and the like rather than supermarkets. That meant that many town centres, and Gloucester is a good example, were deserted after the workers had gone home in the evening. (An honourable exception perhaps was Newcastle which, while subject to some inappropriate development, managed to keep many of its fine buildings and its vibrant night life.) Perhaps now, with extended shop opening hours and venues such as the ubiquitous coffee shops and the likes of Cafe Rouge, etc, etc we are just starting to reclaim town centres for ourselves and they are becoming a more pleasant place to be. My own nearest city, Chelmsford which I am the first to agree was a pointless waste of space in the '80s, has been making great strides in this regard in recent years.
Interesting read. What on earth did we do wrong in this country in order to make pretty much all our town centres so appalling. Compare that to France where town centres have largely remained historic and vibrant.
Green and pleasant land indeed.
'We' didn't do anything. Supermarkets did.
Not wholly true - we voted in the councillors who gave planning consent for the wholesale destruction of many of our town centres (they had been helped somewhat by the Luftwaffe of course). Concrete precincts with little, if any, residential building seemed the way to go in the early '60s and many of the new structures were occupied by department stores, offices - many of those governmental - and the like rather than supermarkets. That meant that many town centres, and Gloucester is a good example, were deserted after the workers had gone home in the evening. (An honourable exception perhaps was Newcastle which, while subject to some inappropriate development, managed to keep many of its fine buildings and its vibrant night life.) Perhaps now, with extended shop opening hours and venues such as the ubiquitous coffee shops and the likes of Cafe Rouge, etc, etc we are just starting to reclaim town centres for ourselves and they are becoming a more pleasant place to be. My own nearest city, Chelmsford which I am the first to agree was a pointless waste of space in the '80s, has been making great strides in this regard in recent years.
Crappy towns tend to fall into two camps 'dodgy/unsafe' or 'hellishly boring'. The 'hellishly boring' ones includes those which are full of office blocks, those that have had their business ripped away by out of town shopping centres and those that are just bleak or built unattractively. I think it depends what you are using the town for. If it is for business, functionality and somewhere to park is important whereas if you are out for a few beers on a Friday night, safety, decent pubs/restaurants etc. might be more important. Personally, I hate the ones that try to keep you out by sending you round the outside on confusing one way systems and then when you do park, you have to walk miles to get anywhere. I also hate ones that rip you for parking - do they want business in the town or not?
nowt wrong with sittingbourne town centre will be tearing it up there sat night ska band and footy in the red lion till 11 then into ssc for the 80s night till 4am.. after living in charlton and plumstead for 30 years sittingbourne is fecking awsome yes there are some wronguns but in nearly 2 years now ive had no bother at all when out on the lash. sheerness i may add tho is borderline third world....
All the town centres and high streets are almost identical, and nearly all dreary. When we played East Fife, Methil was something so horrible I thought it was a post apocalyptic film set.
They did film World War Z in Glasgow. The locals just thought they were tarting the area up a bit.
I was just walking down Chatham High Street, and something i just heard summed up Mewday. Two men sitting on a bench bragging loudly as to what prisons they had been in recently! They didnt seem ashamed, or even attempting to keep their voices down. Classy!!
Maidstone, the top dog of kent and....the garden of england
I lived in or near Maidstone for over 20 years and it's gone downhill in that time (but it may have improved since I left 7 years ago - hopefully the two are not linked!)
I was just walking down Chatham High Street, and something i just heard summed up Mewday. Two men sitting on a bench bragging loudly as to what prisons they had been in recently! They didnt seem ashamed, or even attempting to keep their voices down. Classy!!
I see Eltham is nominated a few times, odd I think considering some of the others put forward. I wouldn't put it on the same level as say Chatham and Dartford.
I used to be a pavement artist, so I travelled from town to town a great deal. I used to get a lot of money nicked in Woolwich, and was spat at a couple of times in Bexleyheath, but on actual appeal or lack of it, my top four would be:- Barking. I could'nt even get near it as the road signs kept petering out. Slough. Soulless and miserable. Crawley. All been said already.
I used to be a pavement artist, so I travelled from town to town a great deal. I used to get a lot of money nicked in Woolwich, and was spat at a couple of times in Bexleyheath, but on actual appeal or lack of it, my top four would be:- Barking. I could'nt even get near it as the road signs kept petering out. Slough. Soulless and miserable. Crawley. All been said already.
And the top prize goes to my home town of
Erith
The comedian Linda Smith came from Erith. She said Erith isn't twinned with another town, but it has signed a suicide pact with Dagenham.
I have to add Hemel Hempstead to this for thoroughness. Not so much the town centre per se (just another boring 60s concrete precinct full of chavs) but the two types of people that inhabit the town: very pregnant teenage girls in trackies, pushing buggies and smoking heavily almost nobody else with full mobility - it's the zimmerframe/invalid scooter capital of Britain
I was just walking down Chatham High Street, and something i just heard summed up Mewday. Two men sitting on a bench bragging loudly as to what prisons they had been in recently! They didnt seem ashamed, or even attempting to keep their voices down. Classy!!
I'm guessing neither of them have seen the inside of a nick in their lives. Bragging to each other so0 they can seem like badmans to anyone who happens to pass.
Crawley is utterly grim, no doubt - but it pales into insignificance when compared with Redhill. Absolute shithole of a place - topped off nicely by the stench of the landfill just up the road. Reigate is 2 miles up the road - but when I lived there it was like living on a different planet.
Comments
Perhaps now, with extended shop opening hours and venues such as the ubiquitous coffee shops and the likes of Cafe Rouge, etc, etc we are just starting to reclaim town centres for ourselves and they are becoming a more pleasant place to be. My own nearest city, Chelmsford which I am the first to agree was a pointless waste of space in the '80s, has been making great strides in this regard in recent years.
Bedford, Chingford, Hereford, Wolverhampton,
Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Aylesbury, Liverpool,
Scunthorpe, Sandthorpe, Mablethorpe, Hartlepool
Whitehall, Bramhall, Mildenhall, Davenport
Newport, Southport, Stockport, “Hi Sport!”.
Farnborough, Edinburgh, Peterborough, Felixstowe,
Middlesborough, Loughborough, Scarborough, Walthamstow,
Blackburn, Lisburn, Bannockburn, Londonderry,
Wicklow, Glasgow, Hounslow, Tipperary
Hempstead, Wanstead, Banstead, Woodstock,
Bass Rock, Bell Rock, Tilbury Dock, “Watcha Cock!”.
Weymouth, Yarmouth, Bournemouth, Huddersfield,
Lewisham, Faversham, Petersham, Chesterfield,
Land’s End, Mile End, Southend, Birkenhead,
Birmingham, Nottingham, Gillingham, Holyhead,
Cambridge, Tonbridge, Knightsbridge, Broadstairs,
Edgware, Ross Wear, Carstairs, “Who cares?”
Maidstone, the top dog of kent and....the garden of england
Luton
Stevenage
Bedford
Barking. I could'nt even get near it as the road signs kept petering out.
Slough. Soulless and miserable.
Crawley. All been said already.
And the top prize goes to my home town of
Erith
Plus this kind of sh*t happens http://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/61075/giraffe-spotted-outside-william-hill-in-eltham-highstreet#latest
Not surprised, bet you wouldn't last 5 mins in that dress
very pregnant teenage girls in trackies, pushing buggies and smoking heavily
almost nobody else with full mobility - it's the zimmerframe/invalid scooter capital of Britain
Woolwich was a great place to live in the 60's and 70's - fast forward 50 years and I'll grant you that it's gone down a tad ;-)