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?

Blimey you do have the right user name dont you?

I was responding to the poster who somewhat amusingly said Has Birmingham been mentioned yet?

Why did you not pick them up on that comment, which also wasn't true?

@EarthlyNightshade I wouldn't bother as they're a nippy sweetie.
Empty room and a row spring to mind.

'Has Birmingham been mentioned yet?' wasn't untrue. 'Birmingham's not a city' was untrue.

It's just a username.

Egham and Watford must be the two worst towns on these islands. Even Hull is much better and it is a dive. Preston is great.

Derby. Awful.

A few have said Bradford but they must not remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s! I grew up near there and went back recently. I was dreading staying but I was pretty impressed at how much it had improved. It will never be beautiful in the way Cambridge, Bath or York are but it's a huge improvement on years ago.

I posted earlier in the thread that I didn’t like Bath.
Dirty streets and shop fronts and quite a tense atmosphere late Saturday afternoon and into the evening.

I was surprised!

How ironic that a city called Bath, named after the ancient Roman baths for which it was famous, should have become so dirty!

Thank you and yes, good question.

I think it's mainly the East side of Hull really from what I have heard. Nobody could say Hull's contiguous old town and marina districts aren't beautiful, or that the central shopping zone is particularly ugly compared to so many other candidates for the hellhole prize. And the university and cafe district in that vicinity is surely a positive as far as Hull goes. It's usually some of the residential areas that bring a city down.

Factor in the Wests and who'd ever want to even visit Goucester, though I believe the house was pulled down. I was put off an area of Bootle, Liverpool for the same reason: the James Bulger murders operating there. I can't imagine going to Hungerford or Dunblane, what with the massacres, let alone moving there to live. These things leave a nasty smell in an area.

Talking of Hull, it was always quite cool that they had their own telephone network whilst the rest of the country had BT - with their distinctive cream phone boxes. Can anybody local advise whether they are still operating in isolation and without sharing any infrastructure with BT? Are they ditching PSTN landlines as well?

I don't know anything about Barnsley, but it does sound as though it has something going for it, compared to some of the not-so-nice city centres. I've heard that Bury, too, is surprisingly nice with a certain vibe and chime.

Yes, to my surprise I quite liked Birmingham centre and its canalside district on an awaydaw with work, but I hear not very encouraging stuff about its complex cultural mix and violence. Guildford? I was there on a training course years ago and felt it wasn't my type of place, as it was so very characterless.

Staines sounds like Middlesex rather than Surrey. No, I'm afraid London is stuck with Croydon, whose vileness is but one blot of the capital's ever-expanding already thoroughly blotted landscape.

Gloucester is not a nice place at all. I agree the history is interesting, and the Quays are ok, but the centre is so run down and feels grubby and dangerous. It is really horrible.

The centre of Croydon is dismal. However, there are plenty of really lovely upmarket areas of Croydon with beautiful houses, parks and woodland as has been mentioned upthread. Croydon has a lot of very wealthy residents.

I’ve met a few Indian people in the health service who originally went to the East Midlands in Britain, particularly Leicester and Nottingham.

They left the East Midlands and headed north because, they said, they came here to see Britain, not India.

I do not understand why we are not allowed to state the truth about the known and factual demographic changes in Britain among certain groups, and the constant call of racism in the face of that change is really wearing. For me, I don’t think of London as our capital city any more.

Wash your mouth out!!

I was at uni there 2005-2008 and OK, yes, THEN it was a bit... Edgy.

But I went back recently for a uni reunion and was blown away. I compare it to an ex that has finally come good and you become bitter that they couldn't have been like that with you when you were together.

The glow up is insane.

But I also felt a bit sad. OK, yes, it's got a Swarwovski jewellery shop and a posh cocktail bar where people swing from seats, but I felt sad for the chicken shop where you could get three chicken strips and fries for £2.99 and I once got fingered behind.

My partners family live in a very close to the centre suburb, Acocks Green, near Tyseley, and it is the worst place I've ever seen. They're moving thankfully, but it's incredibly violent, terrifying driving with speeding through red lights, homeless people banging on car windows, they can't even leave their house and someone was murdered across the street from them the other week.

So much of the problem is online shopping - so do we hammer Amazon in taxes to compensate the town centres and prettify them -oh of course not -why should the gov do something sensible when it can let the country go to ruin but tick the right legal/ the UK is a fair country boxes

Seriously? I think the centre is amazing. Some of the suburbs are grotty but the centre is great.

The centre’s terrible, isn’t it? The new library and King’s Square regeneration are nice but I just can’t help wondering how long it will last. A PP said something about how the trouble with Gloucester is the behaviour of the people who live in it and they’re sadly right ☹️