Rubbish towns

Bletchleyite · 26 Jul 2019

175mph said:
A major thorn for Hull at the moment is the loss of their House Of Fraser store, it's not going to give a very good impression of Hull to those visiting by train when it's the first thing they see when leaving the train station.

You get a similar issue in Bletchley walking past the closed Co-Op department store on the way in, though some of it has now been converted to smaller units so it doesn't look *as* bad.

RailUK Forums

tsr · 26 Jul 2019

700007 said:
You are really not going to like Norfolk, then!

Czesziafan said:
That's OK as I have no intention of ever going there!

Do go. But don’t visit anywhere larger than a small town! If you stick with that rule, you’ll find a lot of Norfolk (especially the deep countryside south of Norwich, and some of the wider Broads area) varies from largely pleasant through to absolutely stunning in a few areas.

gazthomas said:
I don't agree, Llanberis is a village not a town. The "high street" reflects its lower status and the rest of the village is fine. Yes, there is some council housing but it's well maintained. The lake and the two railways are well within walking distance and some of the cafes are quite nice.

Broadly speaking, I’d agree. A fair assessment.

gazthomas · 26 Jul 2019

tsr said:
Broadly speaking, I’d agree. A fair assessment.

That's a nice change for the forums, normally I'd be living in fear of being "shot down". Faith restored, thank you

AndrewE · 26 Jul 2019

[QUOTE="Bletchleyite, post: 4119113, member: 27187" Bangor is pretty manky, though. That said, away from the centre the bit with the pier is quite pleasant.
Llanberis must be the one which should be nice but really isn't.[/QUOTE]
I was surprised at how depressed Holyhead was when I was last there after a day walking the coast path. The Coop seemed to be the only shop with any life and the pub on the high street advertising food couldn't tell us if or when the chef might turn up. Ended up dashing back up the hill for a take-away pizza which we ate on the train home.

DarloRich · 27 Jul 2019

Crawley. Horrible:

Crawley by DarloRich2009, on Flickr

Bletchleyite said:
You get a similar issue in Bletchley walking past the closed Co-Op department store on the way in, though some of it has now been converted to smaller units so it doesn't look *as* bad.

The old co op site has finally been tidied up but I bet those shops dont last long!

Bletchleyite · 27 Jul 2019

DarloRich said:
The old co op site has finally been tidied up but I bet those shops dont last long!

Yeah, they seem to be mostly low budget small businesses. Good to see them, but I would rather it was flattened and developed as green space.

HOOVER29 · 28 Jul 2019

Was up in Darlington a couple of weeks ago after I bought an antique sideboard on ebay.
Not disclosing the amount I paid, let’s just say I might as well have nicked it. Nice cup of tea in it for me even after taking out travel costs.
Anyway back to the thread.
Darlington seemed ok. Some locals (not all) looked a tad iffy though.
I’d like to go back & have another look. It can’t be a bad area as our next door neighbours moved there & they’re both big university types & posh.
He worked in Brazil & she was stationed in South Africa studying rock formations.

camflyer · 28 Jul 2019

HOOVER29 said:
Was up in Darlington a couple of weeks ago after I bought an antique sideboard on ebay.
Not disclosing the amount I paid, let’s just say I might as well have nicked it. Nice cup of tea in it for me even after taking out travel costs.
Anyway back to the thread.
Darlington seemed ok. Some locals (not all) looked a tad iffy though.
I’d like to go back & have another look. It can’t be a bad area as our next door neighbours moved there & they’re both big university types & posh.
He worked in Brazil & she was stationed in South Africa studying rock formations.

I was born in Darlington but escaped as soon as I was old enough.

The town centre has seen far better days with many major retailers moving out and a general lack of investment in the place. On the other hand, there are some very nice villages in the area where the cost of housing is still relatively low so you could get a nice 3 or 4 bed detached house for the price of a small flat in the South East. The good road and rail links mean that it can be an attractive place to move to if you work in Newcastle, Durham or Leeds or if you are are downsizing in retirement.

fowler9 · 28 Jul 2019

d9009alycidon said:
Don't worry. Boris will be top dog later today and he will fix it all! Or will he, governments would love to be seen as strong and cracking down on crime, immigration and social disorder, but to do so would be branded as right wing, totalitarian and racist, that is not going to happen to a government that is going to find it difficult to get re-elected.

Is that really true? If they clamped down on crime in my area it would be white kids getting banged up. Why would cracking down on crime be seen as racist unless you think all crime is commited by black people.

TheGrandWazoo · 29 Jul 2019

camflyer said:
I was born in Darlington but escaped as soon as I was old enough.

The town centre has seen far better days with many major retailers moving out and a general lack of investment in the place. On the other hand, there are some very nice villages in the area where the cost of housing is still relatively low so you could get a nice 3 or 4 bed detached house for the price of a small flat in the South East. The good road and rail links mean that it can be an attractive place to move to if you work in Newcastle, Durham or Leeds or if you are are downsizing in retirement.

I am a Darlington exile. The town has always been "a bit better" than some nearby towns as it has had a focus on precision engineering, rather than hacking fossilised trees out of the ground or melting rocks in a furnace. That and the Quaker fathers did imbue the town with some fine buildings.

Like many Northern towns, it has slipped in the 25-30 years since I worked there as the general economy and wealth of the area has weakened and spending power reduced. It is a bit frayed round the edges and the loss of M&S, BHS and who knows if Binns (HoF) will survive but it's generally a decent town. Compared to the likes of Bishop Auckland or Stockton, it is much better.

DarloRich · 29 Jul 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
I am a Darlington exile. The town has always been "a bit better" than some nearby towns as it has had a focus on precision engineering, rather than hacking fossilised trees out of the ground or melting rocks in a furnace. That and the Quaker fathers did imbue the town with some fine buildings.

agreed - places like Whessoe and Cleveland Bridge dealt with the output of the extraction and refining rather than the extraction itself. There was also a decent collections of "professions" ( accountants/solicitors/surveyours etc) in the town which i suspect was because of the financial solidity the Quakers ( of the type who founded the Darlington & Stockton railway) and their decedents left behind.

I think most of that has gone now and the town is on the slide. It has noticeably gone down hill.

TheGrandWazoo said:
Compared to the likes of Bishop Auckland or Stockton, it is much better.

God yes!

camflyer said:
I was born in Darlington but escaped as soon as I was old enough.

The town centre has seen far better days with many major retailers moving out and a general lack of investment in the place. On the other hand, there are some very nice villages in the area where the cost of housing is still relatively low so you could get a nice 3 or 4 bed detached house for the price of a small flat in the South East. The good road and rail links mean that it can be an attractive place to move to if you work in Newcastle, Durham or Leeds or if you are are downsizing in retirement.

I wasn't born in Darlo but ended up there, left for uni, came back, left etc. (Northern) Echo what is said above. My terraced house in Milton Keynes ( Victorian workers type) buys me 5 identical houses in Darlington and perhaps a whole street somewhere like Hartlepooh.

camflyer · 29 Jul 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
I am a Darlington exile. The town has always been "a bit better" than some nearby towns as it has had a focus on precision engineering, rather than hacking fossilised trees out of the ground or melting rocks in a furnace. That and the Quaker fathers did imbue the town with some fine buildings.

Like many Northern towns, it has slipped in the 25-30 years since I worked there as the general economy and wealth of the area has weakened and spending power reduced. It is a bit frayed round the edges and the loss of M&S, BHS and who knows if Binns (HoF) will survive but it's generally a decent town. Compared to the likes of Bishop Auckland or Stockton, it is much better.

Well, Bishop Auckland indeed. I still have friends and family in the area and whenever I got back to Bishop I'm shocked at how much the town centre has decayed. Nothing but charity shops and pound shops. The major retailers have all moved out to the new retail park at Tindale where you have too many shops fighting over too few customers.

I also have family in Consett and unlike many other towns in the region it has recovered fairly well from its bad times following the closure of the steelworks.

SteveP29 · 29 Jul 2019

fowler9 said:
Is that really true? If they clamped down on crime in my area it would be white kids getting banged up. Why would cracking down on crime be seen as racist unless you think all crime is commited by black people.

I think he was referring to the immigration bit

HOOVER29 · 29 Jul 2019

TheGrandWazoo said:
I am a Darlington exile. The town has always been "a bit better" than some nearby towns as it has had a focus on precision engineering, rather than hacking fossilised trees out of the ground or melting rocks in a furnace. That and the Quaker fathers did imbue the town with some fine buildings.

Like many Northern towns, it has slipped in the 25-30 years since I worked there as the general economy and wealth of the area has weakened and spending power reduced. It is a bit frayed round the edges and the loss of M&S, BHS and who knows if Binns (HoF) will survive but it's generally a decent town. Compared to the likes of Bishop Auckland or Stockton, it is much better.

Didn’t Darlington do the steel roof for St Pancras?
Im no engineer but I love that train shed. Whenever I’m in London I call in to admire it.
Kinda broke my heart when the ugly square box was built at the end of it. William Henry Barlow must be spinning in his grave.

camflyer · 29 Jul 2019

HOOVER29 said:
Didn’t Darlington do the steel roof for St Pancras?
Im no engineer but I love that train shed. Whenever I’m in London I call in to admire it.
Kinda broke my heart when the ugly square box was built at the end of it. William Henry Barlow must be spinning in his grave.

Not sure about St Pancras but Cleveland Bridge is based in Darlington and they are one of the world's leading steel fabrication firms and have worked on everything from Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Wembley arch.

https://www.clevelandbridge.com/about-us/heritage/

HOOVER29 · 29 Jul 2019

camflyer said:
Not about St Pancras but Cleveland Bridge is based in Darlington and they are one of the world's leading steel fabrication firms and have worked on everything from Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Wembley arch.

https://www.clevelandbridge.com/about-us/heritage/

For a steel company from the North East, they’ve been about eh.
Knew about Sydney harbour bridge but not things like the Shard & Wembley stadium
Impressive stuff.
I’d doff my hat to them if I was wearing one.

heart-of-wessex · 30 Jul 2019

I had to do a feeder in one of the fleet cars for a coach tour, drive from Westbury to Yeovil to pick up two passengers at Yeovil Bus Station.

I'd never been to Yeovil so looked up the route on Google Maps which told me to go through the town and also come back that way, but luckily I checked it on Streetview, as the suggested route back wasn't possible as it was all no entry!

Asked a driver at work who had done it some time ago, told me to go in A37/A30 past the fire station, right, right again and it's there, sounded easy enough until I got there and the first right was a no right turn! There was another right turn up ahead which lead around more one way streets, got lost a couple of times but found it in the end, luckily I was there early as I gave myself enough time to get lost!

Had to ask the passengers how to get out, they were also telling me about the locals complaining about the amount of traffic lights.

Never seen Yeovil itself but certainly the road layout to me seems a right nightmare!

Busaholic · 31 Jul 2019

heart-of-wessex said:
I had to do a feeder in one of the fleet cars for a coach tour, drive from Westbury to Yeovil to pick up two passengers at Yeovil Bus Station.

I'd never been to Yeovil so looked up the route on Google Maps which told me to go through the town and also come back that way, but luckily I checked it on Streetview, as the suggested route back wasn't possible as it was all no entry!

Asked a driver at work who had done it some time ago, told me to go in A37/A30 past the fire station, right, right again and it's there, sounded easy enough until I got there and the first right was a no right turn! There was another right turn up ahead which lead around more one way streets, got lost a couple of times but found it in the end, luckily I was there early as I gave myself enough time to get lost!

Had to ask the passengers how to get out, they were also telling me about the locals complaining about the amount of traffic lights.

Never seen Yeovil itself but certainly the road layout to me seems a right nightmare!

I decided to stop off in Yeovil once when we'd been diverted off the A303 but, having driven one and a half times round the town couldn't see an obvious way to achieve this, so didn't! Andover is much the same, though I've cracked that now: about as welcoming as Royston Vazey. :lol:

py_megapixel · 13 Aug 2019

Stockport was pretty awful when I last visited. Its last major redevelopment was designed for road transport, with the station being stuck up a hill and feeling like an afterthought.

Whenever they wanted to add something new, the local council seem to have just dumped it on the outskirts rather than knocking down some of the awful stuff in the centre, making the transport more inadequate with each iteration, with even the free shuttle bus being withdrawn recently.

These new developments in turn suck business out of the centre, causing very little to be in walking distance of anything else. The downfall of Stockport is in catch-22, with shops shutting down causing footfall to decrease, causing more shops to close and so on. There is nothing in Stockport which Manchester doesn't have, so people would rather make the 20 minute journey to Manchester.

Bletchleyite · 13 Aug 2019

py_megapixel said:
These new developments in turn suck business out of the centre, causing very little to be in walking distance of anything else. The downfall of Stockport is in catch-22, with shops shutting down causing footfall to decrease, causing more shops to close and so on. There is nothing in Stockport which Manchester doesn't have, so people would rather make the 20 minute journey to Manchester.

Is that the reason, or is a combination of online shopping and supermarket delivery doing that? Bletchley town centre is near-dead too...

py_megapixel · 13 Aug 2019

Bletchleyite said:
Is that the reason, or is a combination of online shopping and supermarket delivery doing that? Bletchley town centre is near-dead too...

In fact, it's all three. For example, a cinema closed in the centre in favour of a new one on the outskirts. Similarly, various clothing retailers have relocated to retail parks some distance from the town centre.

Rubbish towns

Veteran Member

RailUK Forums

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Established Member