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?

No, no, no, we do not want more southerners turning up, wearing breton tops, inflating house prices and painting everything grey. No thank you.

Town centres are dying, many have empty shops and out of town shopping - which people prefer and then complain about the empty shops in town?

Harrogate is probably your best bet as there are less than 150 people unemployed on U.C

Agree with those lovely parts of South Somerset (and places like Sherborne in Dorset), but Yeovil has been known as Yeo-vile by most of my south Somerset friends for ever...!

Don't be like that @KateDelRick Let's be m8s

Sorry @Meadowfinch but Newbury is awful, especially on race days.

Ah, ok. You'll have to learn to like pork pies and walking through horizontal winds, though.

Malvern seems quite popular to move to

St Albans

@BloodyHellKenAgain I'm in Newbury most weeks, not just on race days, and it's lovely. I've not once had a problem in the last 25 years. Parking, shopping, socialising.

I guess it depends if you know the three pubs to avoid. There is very occasional trouble at the race course, I can remember a couple of incidents, but generally it's a safe, pretty family-orientated town.

Kent- towns like Sevenoaks & Tunbridge Wells are still really nice (though the shopping centre end of TW is less so). Also Lewis, Whitstable & Folkestone.

Our nearest nice town is Leamington Spa, which regularly features in lists of best places to live. It is prosperous and leafy with many lovely independent shops, but even here you see people sleeping on the streets and evidence of drug dealing. Many stores have closed in recent years, including the only department store, and others such as M&S have moved to retail parks. There are many vacant premises in the Priors shopping centre which has a rather sad look these days. And there is nowhere to buy a pair of decent shoes!

You need a thick jumper, a wind proof coat and a bobble hat though.

( DH and DM both ex Northumberland, for similar reasons)

Lovely! But oh so pricey.

Another for Malvern, great place to live.
Nearby Ledbury is lovely too.

Henley on Thames
Wilmslow
Alderley Edge
Ilkley
Malton
Pickering
Rye
Hampstead
Dulwich (east, west and village)
Highgate
Chelsea
Marylebone and other central areas
EAST Anglian villages and small towns,
Cambridge is so pretty now with blossom
Oxford
the small towns of Surrey and Sussex which can be surprisingly isolated
border towns of Wales and England, Monmouth, HayonWye, Ludlow, Chester
Cheltenham, Cirencester and the Cotswold towns

I live in Harrogate and it's still nice.

We should get together with @SOxon and then meet up at @ThomCruise for some pork pies, cake, and tea 😁 I also want to see where is this magical place that's kept a secret from us well-meaning MNetters @KateDelRick

@SOxon , nowhere in the north then 👌

well… I lived in Cheshire, holidayed regularly in The Lakes,
which is as far North as Ive ever been, apart from wild
North Yorkshire, so not qualified to say really.
These are places I have been to recently and familiar with

We were in Lichfield last week, don’t know much about it but was such a lovely high street.

You do indeed. But at least you get the beaches to yourself lol.

You do. I remember wearing jeans, boots, a jumper and a fleece lined coat to walk on the beach.
It was July.

Croydon 😍

good plan @cassiatwenty - @ThomCruise is there space to park a coach ?

Its easy to find places that are prosperous and pretty.

What I find depressing is how difficult it is to find places where people aren’t casually xenophobic, anti migrant and think anyone on benefits is lazy. There’s a reason the Tory party are peddling their policies - they’re confident they’ll win votes.

I’ve lost count of the lovely, pretty places we’ve visited, only to be faced with ‘it was better before the Polish people moved in’ type comments in the (lovely, pretty, prosperous) pub.

Lots of people across the country would hate where I live. But I’m just happy I have like minded neighbours\school parents etc.