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.

Malton is not in the golden triangle - it is east of York !!
The golden triangle is the area covered between York, Harrogate and Leeds, ie to the west of York.

Loshad is right. Malton and Pickering don't fall into the 'magic triangle' that people talk about. Luckily as we are going to be moving soon.

Stoke on Trent. urgh!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you....Swadlincote. Solely consists of pound shops and card shops. There are two Poundstretchers, opposite each other. One sells mainly loo roll. It is the spiritual home of the wolf fleece.

I think we have our winner

chickens not a chance - Castleford has all of those in spades, along with many boarded up shops to boot.
spennymoor also has all of the above (not sure about 2 x pound shops - try to avoid the place if possible on trips back to the old folks) plus a tasty 1960's concrete shopping centre complete with pee smells, litter and a wind at all times.

Well, yes, tehnically Malton and Pickering don't, (I should be an estate agent!) but Malton is one of those commutable places for Leeds and York is all I meant.

I just wanted to drag this thread back from last week to ask..

If a town centre were given a revival fund of £100,000, what do you think it should be spent on in order to bring a failing town back to life?

What do you want to see when you go to a town? Especially those towns that don't have a lot of big name shops & are unable to entice them in due to the lack of foot fall.

Provide attractive spaces and cheap rents for independents alongside free car parking - at least for very short stays. You would need to know more about the town to know what types of independents would make money. But if poorer area could be junk/second hand shops, greengrocers, second hand bookshops, cheap card shops, etc. If there are at least some people with money about could be some more quirky shops e.g. artists, vintage, home made cakes, etc. If second type then links with universities arts departments might help.

The point is that it would be something different to the big chains.

As someone with money to spend i will happily take a short detour to have a look at quirky shops or even a cheap but slightly different market. But I won't bother if I have to pay say £3 to park. If you provided parking free for an hour then I would happily stop and have a quick look and maybe buy something. If I really liked it then I could come back, pay more and stay longer. But I think parking costs make a big difference to pulling in people like myself.

For example, I already take a detour regularly to go to a small town centre that I pass nearby with free parking just because it has... a WI stall in its market with fab jams and preserves, a cake stall with lovely home made cake and a cheap secondhand book shop...oh and a pub with nice real ale. This is in a very poor small town with free parking.

Sorry back again! Also make sure there aren't lots of empty boarded up shops. Let charities or others use them on short term free rents instead of leaving them boarded up as this does look depressing and does affect the attractiveness of a place. Also flowers in summer and lights - especially plain white bulbs - can be pretty cheap, but make a real difference. I would go for this before spending money on paving, sculptures, etc.

Barry! Its a shithole