Gone to visit an old friend in Mansfield - moved away in 1990 and last visited in 2000 - they tend to come to ours.
It feels really odd- I know it gets very bad reputation but some bits of the town actually look much nicer- the posher residential area I was from still looks pretty nice , now has a few Italian restaurants , an extremely nice huge Sainsbury's ( better than ours in Bath) and various other very useful things too but it's not hard to see the issue when you go into the centre
All these good things have been developed on the edge in retail parks and the town centre is depressing and not nice, although it has good bones. All the big stores and stuff are no longer there apart from M&S and hence what with people working from home and far less bigger business in the centre there is nothing really to go in for- and not enough people working central either to sustain daytime business. and the pubs! It was always known for its pubs and ability to do a really good pub crawl when I was young- nearly all gone. On the plus side it does have a nice new bus station, a nice leisure complex in town and one on the edge too and is now linked on train to Nottingham. If you want a big house at very reasonable prices rent or buy- I've been to way worse places here 'down south'
It does kind of have all you need - an M&S, next, primark, new look, boots, TK Maxx , supermarkets etc but it's all kind of scattered about - it is a big example of how big retail parks can decimate a centre.
The thing I found really different though was people walking about the town centre - because of the above points I mentioned it no longer feels very mixed ( it used to) - a lot of older people, and folks who looked like they were struggling or unwell -
However I can say it's still friendly and it was bizarrely nice to hear people with the same accent as me all round. I'm not sure what the solution is but it reminded me of why I think some town planners have a lot to answer for - there has to be a reason to go into town if you want a vibrant centre