What do you think is the worst city centre in the UK and why?

[OneLilacHedgehog]

So many cities have gone downhill since COVID. But which is the worst?

Not all cities are big, that's nonsense. Since you're so keen to differentiate between them and towns, try visiting Wales and its cities, including St Asaph, Bangor and St David's.

The common denominators are well known: out-of-town shopping centres, online shopping, and more recently covid costs in a Brexit-ruined economy. Drug-trafficking and money laundering have added to the poor state of town and city centres. Life has become mostly an online experience.

Well, it’s not Doncaster. I’ve been to far worse.

Bradford, Birmingham, Blackpool - they’re all worse.

Although Donny is getting rougher by the week.

Birmingham is the worst I've ever seen.

It's always been gritty, but the locals used to be friendly.

Last year I was actually scared walking around in broad daylight (and I'm very used to navigating London, including the dodgy areas). I felt very unwelcome in certain places, it didn't even feel like I was in the UK anymore.

And the roads are used as a race track by scum at night, I'm shocked there haven't been more car crashes/deaths.

Stoke on Trent, the potteries especially!

I went to Barnsley last week and was impressed with their town centre. Stoke could learn a lot from them.

Birmingham was stuffed by the equal pay row. And other mismanagement. I agree there should be equal pay but not that it should be backdated - how much did it cost the council tax payers of Birmingham. Reason should have prevailed

Yes, I mentioned it about 6 months ago on here and got ripped to shreds. Apparently it’s smaller than skid row in LA so it doesn’t count, or something.

It’s as if power hoses haven’t been invented - our local town has food and vomit stains, dried on dog mess - just Powerhose it every 3months pleeease.
ditto Brighton - look up and things are quite nice and quaint look down and the pavements are grey and grimy and stained

That's so true. You can always tell the state of a place by looking at its pavements: I almost broke my neck on the way to the Optician's, by tripping over a passed out druggie.

Then when I got there, it was closed and boarded up.

Birmingham

but I regularly travel to multiple cities in a week and they are all largely the same these days with marauding groups of young men in balaclavas, begging, drug addicts. Don’t me started on the graffiti everywhere. Our entire nation is a cesspit

Totally agree about Chichester it used to be a lovely city , busy , vibrant and full of shops . A bastion of middle class living . The last time I went there were druggies and drunks hanging around the market car park , a lot of shops were empty and there were more ‘ dross’ shops moving in . Such a huge shame as it was lovely , now not so much .

@AuraBoraIt’s a real shame about M&S and House of Fraser being empty but what I will say (I live in a village v.near Chichester and work there in the office 2 days a week) is it’s always busy, the market days are great and the cafes and pubs are always buzzing. We were in the town last weekend for a coffee with our dogs and remarked on how lucky we are, considering how crap the towns and cities around us now are! Yes we have the same issues with a handful of drug users causing problems but the centre Portsmouth is awful and feels unsafe!

I suggested Birmingham up thread

I've been in Berlin for work this week, and it's an absolute world away from any city in the UK. It's clean, no junkies, no homeless, no gangs of youths, traffic moves smoothly and everyone seems to share public space harmoniously.

I walked back to my hotel from a restaurant last night alone at about 10pm. I wouldn't feel comfort doing that in many UK cities, let alone the capital.

It really showed me what a shithole the UK is. I wish me or DH had jobs that meant we could leave.

Definitely. SiL lives there. Hadn't been for years. Went up last October for her husbands funeral. Absolute utter shit hole.

This nails it for me.

A poster upthread asks how we can have a tents full of homeless people around a station in London and people flying round in private jets.

This is why. The people in the private jets have caused a huge problem. Their wealth is not benign. They have extracted it from the rest of us.

My local town centre has done the same. It's much easier than trying to park at the hospital, and the diagnostic centre is run very efficiently. You are in and out within minutes. The council have also invested a lot of money in the town and rebuilt the market and have developed a large open space for events - we had a continental street food market last weekend and the place was buzzing. People come from other towns that aren't doing well to shop here.

It isn't a town that is on most people's bucket list, but I like to visit.

It's Barnsley.

That end of Oxford Street always was the scummy end. It used to be full of Delboys selling fake perfume to unsuspecting tourists. Just the MO has changed.

Croydon, not a city but very run down with lots of empty shops. Harrogate is one of the best with a good mix of shops, restaurants, green space and amazing floral displays.

I grew up in Croydon. It makes me sad to see what has happened to it.

I was at teacher training college in Cheltenham from 84 to 88. Gloucester was a dump then ( the dock area was undeveloped and dangerous. Prostitutes everywhere). Lived around it until 2000. It was always a dump. Went to a concert at the cathedral recently. The cathedral area was fine. Getting there and back from the carpark was not fine. Will never visit again. My friends comment was ' you can throw any amount of money at Gloucester but you'll never change the mindset of the people in it".

😂
Well it’s certainly gone a long way downhill from the dump it was - especially with the closure of all the big shops.

It has competition with the Corn Exchange in Leeds.

Went on a coach trip to the Christmas market with my mother a few years ago. The state of the place got worse and worse the nearer we got to the centre. Got off the coach,went to John Lewis ,stayed there until it was time to get back on it. John Lewis gone now. Wouldn't ever go back. Midlands news used to film there in the first week of the market. They don't bother now.

I still love going back to Brum but it is increasingly a case of looking for the positives! Year on year, it feels like the edge gets harder and the laid-back vibe gets more precarious.

Street cleaners were out in force last week, though. One good thing! (clutches at straw)

Tbh, a few decades ago it was a lot better than it is now. Now it’s just dirty and riddled with crime, and just a very unfriendly place to live. If people are tempted to visit because of the ‘city of culture’ label, please dont. You’ll be disappointed….