General What is the worst town in England?

[Wandering Yellow]

I recently saw some random post on Twitter which had listed the worst towns in England. I have no idea what the criteria was for deciding, but I found it interesting. The UK has a long tradition of a fascination with "Crap Towns"


In 2019 the Mirror listed England's Top Ten crap towns as this: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-top-10-crap-towns-14031127

I wondered if Yellows Forum could provide a better, more well-thought out list, of the crappest towns in England. After much debate we can crown the "Yellows Forum 2022 Crap Towns top 10", few people visit more crap towns than lower league football supporters after all.

I will throw my list of crap towns/cities into the hat.

1. Burslem
2. Gillingham
3. Oldham
4. Reading
5. Southampton
6. Boston
7. Morecambe
8. Bournemouth
9. Huddersfield
10. Swindon

I expect my list would look different if I had visited places like Luton or Coventry.

 

[bashamwonderland]

Canterbury a worse place to live than Sunderland or Oldham... Not sure about that.

 

[Belgium Yellow]

Swindon
Reading
Luton
in that order of course!
If you think about it, Oxford is surrounded by a ring of crap towns. Going clockwise I'd list Coventry, Northampton, MK, Luton, Watford, Aylesbury, Reading, Basingstoke, Swindon.

 

[Marked Ox]

Some of these people making this list have clearly never been to Workington.

 

[Matt W]

View attachment 8873

I recently saw some random post on Twitter which had listed the worst towns in England. I have no idea what the criteria was for deciding, but I found it interesting. The UK has a long tradition of a fascination with "Crap Towns"


In 2019 the Mirror listed England's Top Ten crap towns as this: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-top-10-crap-towns-14031127

I wondered if Yellows Forum could provide a better, more well-thought out list, of the crappest towns in England. After much debate we can crown the "Yellows Forum 2022 Crap Towns top 10", few people visit more crap towns than lower league football supporters after all.

I will throw my list of crap towns/cities into the hat.

1. Burslem
2. Gillingham
3. Oldham
4. Reading
5. Southampton
6. Boston
7. Morecambe
8. Bournemouth
9. Huddersfield
10. Swindon

I expect my list would look different if I had visited places like Luton or Coventry.

Coventry is a city

 

[Wandering Yellow]

Coventry is a city

We are including cities as per my original post, but "crap towns" is part of UK culture so its in the thread title!

 

[mooro]

Swindon
Reading
Luton
in that order of course!
If you think about it, Oxford is surrounded by a ring of crap towns. Going clockwise I'd list Coventry, Northampton, MK, Luton, Watford, Aylesbury, Reading, Basingstoke, Swindon.

You forgot High Wycombe, which along with Luton I have the mis-pleasure to know well, and would definitely put both in that top five....er, two..... (and that is without any football based influence)

 

[Belgium Yellow]

You forgot High Wycombe, which along with Luton I have the mis-pleasure to know well, and would definitely put both in that top five....er, two..... (and that is without any football based influence)

Yes - they are so insignificant it is easy to overlook them, but you are right. Although I quite liked visiting the Hellfire caves in West Wycombe as a kid. Never imagined that place would get some kind of football team in the future.

 

[unification]

Stevenage.

All of it built in the 1960s and it’s now all falling down at the same time.

 

[m]

Coventry is a city

Hull was the inaugural winner of the crap town title, so cities have always been allowed.

 

[m]

View attachment 8873

I recently saw some random post on Twitter which had listed the worst towns in England. I have no idea what the criteria was for deciding, but I found it interesting. The UK has a long tradition of a fascination with "Crap Towns"


In 2019 the Mirror listed England's Top Ten crap towns as this: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-top-10-crap-towns-14031127

I wondered if Yellows Forum could provide a better, more well-thought out list, of the crappest towns in England. After much debate we can crown the "Yellows Forum 2022 Crap Towns top 10", few people visit more crap towns than lower league football supporters after all.

I will throw my list of crap towns/cities into the hat.

1. Burslem
2. Gillingham
3. Oldham
4. Reading
5. Southampton
6. Boston
7. Morecambe
8. Bournemouth
9. Huddersfield
10. Swindon

I expect my list would look different if I had visited places like Luton or Coventry.

Bit of local pride there with Abingdon steaming at at 23.

 

[Marked Ox]

Bit of local pride there with Abingdon steaming at at 23.

Abingdon is fine, lots of worse places to live.

 

[Marked Ox]

I'll also chuck in Jaywick, Essex:

Life in the country's most deprived town where 'people visit as it's so rough'

Jaywick was announced as England's most deprived neighbourhood

www.essexlive.news

 

[SteMerritt]

Abingdon is fine, lots of worse places to live.

22 to be precise

 

[Oslernorth]

That list is incredibly harsh on the top 30!!

 

[Wandering Yellow]

Stevenage.

All of it built in the 1960s and it’s now all falling down at the same time.

Crawley and Stevenage are so similar. Not sure if they are top 10 territory though?

There might be some "closeness" bias from this forum as we are mostly Oxford/Near Oxford based.

I actually thought Middlesbrough was OK but that's often considered the crappest town.

 

[WuTang]

I'll also chuck in Jaywick, Essex:

Life in the country's most deprived town where 'people visit as it's so rough'

Jaywick was announced as England's most deprived neighbourhood

www.essexlive.news

Jaywick is by far and away number 1 on the list, and probably will be for many years.

Always entertaining using Google Street View to drop in and see what you can find, looks like a post apocalyptic scene!

 

[Oslernorth]

Swindon
Reading
Luton
in that order of course!
If you think about it, Oxford is surrounded by a ring of crap towns. Going clockwise I'd list Coventry, Northampton, MK, Luton, Watford, Aylesbury, Reading, Basingstoke, Swindon.

MK is an interesting one. It’s certainly a very different, almost unique place.
And although it’s not necessarily my cup of tea, it’s far from a crap town (now city).

For me a crap town has no amenities, no charm, no beauty. There’s nothing unique or interesting about it or it’s people. There’s usually an intolerance to outsiders or individuality.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Depends what you mean by worst. A lot of people just interpret it as poorest. I quite like Reading, a comfortable sort of place with good connections and some live music venues. To me a crap town has no beauty or culture, and aggressive, ignorant, intolerant people. I grew up near Romford and that ticks a lot of boxes, though it’s easy to get to London.

 

[Wandering Yellow]

MK is an interesting one. It’s certainly a very different, almost unique place.
And although it’s not necessarily my cup of tea, it’s far from a crap town (now city).

For me a crap town has no amenities, no charm, no beauty. There’s nothing unique or interesting about it or it’s people. There’s usually an intolerance to outsiders or individuality.

I completely agree about MK, a completely bizarre (perhaps soul-less?) place, but I don't think I'd find living there insufferable.

I am only judging Reading on its town centre which is awful. It's suburbs however are likely fine to even nice and it does have good London access.

I've visited loads of towns (probably not as many as the likes of never-miss-an-awaydayers like @Paul B ) but not enough to truly know or guess where the crappest towns are. For example I invisage places like Scunthorpe and Grimsby being quite terrible but I've never been.

Stoke-On-Trent, Gillingham, Swindon must be seriously up there. I've never been to Aylesbury.