To ask which towns/cities have NOT gone to the dogs?

[Lieger]

We are likely relocating in a couple of years. Just seen a thread about towns being full of people fighting and off their heads on drugs, empty high streets, rubbish everywhere, tent cities etc. Is there anywhere in the UK that hasn’t gone to hell?

The high street is struggling in most places.

Other than that, most of NI is still lovely.

Norwich!

Dreams in Waitrose Bath
Stickers yellow like the sun
A golden promise

I would happily live in Norwich if I went back to the UK.

I think the safest bet might be one of those drab little market towns that only gentrified in the noughties. The council housing has all been sold off and rents are far too high for the druggy fighty toothless zombie types. Downsides are constant parking / garden fence wars and relentless nimbyism.

I lived in Norwich once and thought it a lovely little city!

Great Malvern?

@Brexile Norwich is the only place I’d live if I moved back to the UK having grown up there. It’s one of the few places that’s getting better with age - great market, food, arts and culture scene, affordable housing, beautiful medieval architecture. Properly underrated imo

I just visited Dudley and was shocked how run down the town centre is. Very sad.

Another vote for Norwich. And two other small towns which must remain nameless!

It's probably #1 on my list because it has a slightly arty/studenty vibe but without feeling too sketchy / unsafe. Architecturally it's stunning and I could walk around the cathedral grounds all day. Went to a Chinese-owned chippy and had the best (and most generously portioned) fish and chips I've ever had outside of Scotland. Stayed in an Airbnb which was a little terraced house in an area that felt like a cleaner, more salubrious version of Jericho (Oxford) in the 90s. I would say that the charity shops aren't quite as good as they were 30 years ago, but if that's your biggest problem you haven't really got a problem! Buses are also not too expensive and you can get a direct bus to the seaside. Also not too Brexity for East Anglia, pensioners aside. Why doesn't everybody aspire to live in Norwich?? I'm genuinely mystified.

It's partly a consequence of online shopping. People used to go to town to buy things. Now so many shops have closed down, you just get charity and vaping shops, a Greggs and a WHSmith or whatever.

Love Bath.

Cardiff’s my home city and it’s gone downhill a lot in the very centre, but we still have lovely suburbs, parks and two rivers, great sport facilities, an opera house and John Lewis is still here … 😁

I live in Penarth by the sea and although it’s a lovely town, it can be a bit grey and every single bank has closed. The high street is struggling, it’s 50/50 between a couple of nice restaurants and shops and a dearth of charity shops and empty units (and barbers). Think it suffers from proximity to Cardiff tbh, it’s not far away enough to develop a thriving high street in its own right.

Last year I had cause to give an elderly neighbour a lift to Frome and was astonished at the independent shops, four open high street banks, great coffee shops, restaurants etc. If you lived in a town like that I could see it would be hard to believe how bad it can get elsewhere. Don’t get me started on the Valleys.

Many of the suburbs are lovely but town has got properly nasty - loads of empty shops and St Mary Street and Queen St are full of drunks and drug deals at all hours of the day. Plus it’s still got a massive litter problem.

Yup, this.

Thank you, a recommendation from a real local is always worth having! My DPs are from Norfolk and we always went back there a lot for days out. (Usually Cromer, which was dodgy as hell in the 90s but is relatively nice now, albeit more for families with young DCs). Norwich absolutely gets my vote and also that of my 18 yo DD1.

I like Nantwich.

Out of interest, what’s wrong with Northerners?

The time and Sunday times

Nope, small town in Scotland

Pretty much.

Saffron Walden and Cambridge both remain thoroughly lovely.

Beaconsfield, South East, but pricey.

Go on!

😏 because according to some, we are an unruly, rowdy, sweary, uncouth bunch. We can't drive, can't make the correct choices and have the intelligence of gnats. I beg to differ of course.

I was raised in Norwich and it’s a great city.

But it’s surrounded by the rest of Norfolk (for better or worse) and the North Sea on three sides. It wasn’t until I moved away o realised how isolated it is.

I much prefer being closer to the centre of things (by which I mean London.) DH, having been raised in Zone One won’t countenance living in London with kids so we looked to East Anglia when we moved out. We have found a lovely town in East Anglia near London and Cambridge and visit both very often, for work and play.

Places I've recently visited that seem to have escaped the last 16 years of doom are:
Cities:
Norwich
Cambridge
Bath
Wells

Towns:
Christchurch
Lymington
Lyme Regis
Wimborne
Aldeburgh

Villages:
Woodhall Spa (lincs)
Holt (Norfolk)

Agreed. Stamford is lovely, as is Oakham.