To nominate as the country's worst town centre....

[moogster1a]

...Rochdale.
Good God it's a god forsaken place. There appears to be half a dozen payday loan shos, a few poundland things and some mobile 'phone shops.
It's got so bad that even maccy d's has shut down.
It's only redeeming feature is that Gabbots farm is still clinging on.

CambridgeFerret both my DC have Stevenage in their passports. I do feel a little bad about it.

BookFairy I went to school in Maghull. Did you? If you went to a school beginning with a D my dad might have taught you. Although you might well have gone to one starting with an M. Or the other one starting with an M . Or you might not have gone to school there at all of course.

I had my wedding reception in Southport. But it was the summer holidays so probably OK

I used to have some postcards of the Square in Maghull. They should have been in the Boring Postcards book (which is actually one of my favourite books )

ANother vote for Aylesbury here...it's my local town (sadly) but I try to only go when we go to the swimming pool (Aquavale is fab!) - I head to Milton Keynes instead.. it's dull as poo, but like others have said, it's not scary and the shops are lovely and clean and indoors!!

Luton is proper minging.

Southport?!! You've led a priveliged life if you think that's a bad town

QED: No I went to school in S'port but I know which schools you mean! (A family friends taught at D- for quite a few years!) By the looks of other nominations the north west is a depressing economic black hole right now.

No it's definitely not the worst (I lived in SE London for over 3 years so I'm not completely naive!) but it's rapidly declining.

Plenty around West/North West London: Hayes, Wembley, Harrow (not the Hill).

Remains of the day - Mothercare won't have any town centre shops, soon. They're closing them all.

My dad was there for ages but has retired now. And he and my mum have forsaken the north west for the south east.

Southport isn't bad but isn't exactly exciting. Even the sea can't be bothered to come in further than about a mile away.

Sittingbourne. Hate it with a passion. It is like a town that hasn't move on since the 80s. MiL lives there and depression hits when we start the journey and doesn't lift until I spot the high rises as we come back into Bristol. Shitholebourne, the most awful place on earth!

Ipswich has got a lovely Lakeland Limited in an old listed building hasn't it? Buttermarket or something?

I have no idea why Birmingham and Solihull are on the list. Solihull is a posh upmarket place with a huge town centre for such a small area.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Dudley town centre either. It's clean, everything looks new, all the shops are tidy, the people are pleasant and chatty and it is attractive and has most of the usual stores and restaurant chains.

There's a place called Tidworth in Andover which has absolutely nothing going for it.

I found Coventry to be miserable and devoid of much activity in the evenings, but that was quite a few years ago so it might have changed.

Lozells, Nechells and West Bromwich are shitholes. If you want to eat you need to inspect the premises carefully first, they're usually very dirty and greasy. Everybody looks miserable too. Every other market stall is selling plastic clip on mobile covers.

Redcar is miserable when it's out of the holiday season.

I think Hartlepool and Oldham are just fine, although there's plenty for the ghouls to gawp at in Hartlepool because many of the people look odd.

Stockton-on-Tees is a bit miserable when the weather isn't nice but understandably people have a lot on their minds up north what with it being difficult to find a job and barely any that pay enough to live on.

I visited Stockholm. I was expecting it to be wonderful. Sadly it looks extremely ugly and you can't tell what any of the shops are meant to be apart from the boutiques which are all shaded over to stop the riff raff walking in.

I think I meant 'a place called Tidworth in Wiltshire'

Oh and one more. Papworth is quite pretty but there's one 'Nisa', one pub and a teddy bear shop and that's IT.

My vote would go to the takeaway capital of the known universe, Rochdale.

If you want to cash your gold, get a payday loan or go on a trolley dash in a pound shop you're sorted. If you want to pick up an outfit for under a tenner, that looks like it cost less than a fiver you can't go far wrong. Likewise if you like to go for a stroll to admire all the empty shop fronts, whilst simultaneously dodging all the dole dossers in their super stylish Henleys feeding their toddlers pasties from one of the many Gregga or Hampsons, this is the place for you.

It has some nice buildings. It has a truly fantastic tapas restaurant. Some people are friendly - the lady in Thorntons is great - but many are not. There is not one place I'd want to go for a drink, nowhere for me to buy clothes, shoes or homewares etc. Whoever mentioned Whitworth - it's a lovely place, I often go walking there.

Unfortunately I have to go to Rochdale for work. Hideous.

Why do many of the people look odd in Hartlepool?

Ilkeston. It needs nuking off the planet!

Haven't been to Cumbernauld for a couple of years. Has it improved?

Harlow - there's just something totally depressing about it.

Thamesmead, Greenslade, Erith, Crayford, Dartford, Gravesend, Strood, Chatham, Gillingham, (I'll let Rochester off the hook as it has so much beautiful Georgian architecture, although it's still a bit of a dump overall.)

and their mirror image towns on the other side:-

Dagenham, Purfleet, Thurrock, Grays, Stanford le Hope, Tilbury, Basildon and Canvey Island.

All quite jaw-droppingly grim.

(almost all of the rest of Essex is really far, far lovelier than most people realise though - honestly! Especially the north of the county, it's beautiful, apart from Braintree, but that has some lovely villages around it)

Coalville.

Luton and Northampton.

Wolverhampton

Reading (apart from the nice bit of Earley)

Bracknell, Newbury, Wokingham, Slough

Croydon

Dover/Margate/Ramsgate/Hastings (although there are efforts afoot to gentrify Margate and Hastings, a la Whitstable. They've got their work cut out, but you know these pioneering arty types. )

Huge swathes of what used to be Middlesex - Feltham, West Drayton, all the areas around Heathrow (except Datchett/Wraysbury) and Hounslow. (and all you people who live in Hounslow stop pretending it's Twickenham.)

90% of Lancashire. There are too many godawful, grim, depressing towns to even have the energy to type them. Countryside stunning, people mostly friendly and warm, if a little erm...over-exhuberant and a bit too fond of the pub, but Good Lord, its towns are depressing, insular places. I have been going there pretty regularly for most of my life, all over Lancs, and I struggle to name a nice bit, so I'm not tarring a whole county with the same brush as Burnley, before anyone says that. (but Burnley has a special place in my heart for being super-awful.)

And everyone says 'Ooh Clitheroe is lovely, and Hebden Bridge is lovely (ok that's technically Yorks, but it's the nearest trip out of hell if you are in the arse end of Lancs) but guess what? They are not even that lovely. they are just a lot less grim than everywhere else. It's all relative.

Do you mean Slade Green Hilly? it is shite there.

Whoops! Yes I do! In my defence it's a long long time since I hung around those parts - my memory is rusty! Greenslade is near Plumstead if I recall correctly? It's still part of the same strip of horridness though.

Hartlepool.
DH from there and has been known to call it "God's Own Town", and claims people from Peterlee and Blackhall like to visit Hartlepool becasue to them it is a sparkling metropolis, full of fun, life and beautiful architecture. And they can stock up on heroin while they are there - York Road, I belive is the street of choice. You can also visit the Can House;

But I think Hartlepool is a crap place despite its artistic pretensions.

I think for me the 'worst' place not only must have ugly architecture, dreadful shops/pubs/restaurants, the feeling of total failure and pointlessness, desolation, despair and despondency but to be the worst, to really push it into the ranks of worst it must have a feeling of violence and danger at every turn.

All the rest i can just about tolerate, but when i am out and feel that its 'about to kick off' that's when i just can't bear a place.

Now i think of it - the amount of time i have spent in places with my heart pounding and my stomach in my mouth, maneuvering myself to the nearest exit and mentally preparing what i'm going to do when it all inevitably does implode is ridiculous. Why didn't i realise i could just leave? why didn't every other miserable fucker there!?

Are Wrexham and Prestatyn still godforsaken? (been over 20 years since i vowed never to go back)

I've also heard really bad things about Plymouth.