Mail on Sunday

[Ardiles]

As we're on about sussex the daddy of all shit towns, crawley is just up the road, and judging by the lengthening list this whole country is a shithole, are there any decent towns?

Newcastle
Stamford, Lincolnshire
St Ives, Cornwall

Three of my favourites.  All for very different reasons.

[Sussex]

As we're on about sussex the daddy of all shit towns, crawley is just up the road, and judging by the lengthening list this whole country is a shithole, are there any decent towns?

I have the pleasure of working in Crawley. They have to put more police out in the town centre during school holidays to cope with the extra shoplifting asbo chavs. Nice place..

[mexico red]

nice places

brighton
tunbridge wells
bath
warwick
salisbury
lymington
honiton
barnstaple
cheltenham
york
harrogate
kendal
chester
shoreham -by-sea

[Bogus Dave]

loughboroughs nice

[tans]

nice places

brighton
tunbridge wells
bath
warwick
salisbury
lymington
honiton
barnstaple
cheltenham
york
harrogate
kendal
chester
shoreham -by-sea

i was born there.

[RobertT]

why the fuck do people go on about loads of roundabouts in swindon?
there's the magic roundabout of course, but there's something similar in colchester and im sure many other places

i might be way off the mark, but apart from the MRA, there's no more roundabouts in swinny than there are in other urban areas are there?

We are indeed a town with a much higher concentration of roundabouts than most others (Colchester and MK being two others of note).  It's more the high number of mini roundabouts that does it, the vogue is to use traffic lights, like they have done along Thamesdown Drive.  I think roundabouts can create traffic chaos if there are two many close to each other, a bit like the stretch on Great Western Way where McDonalds is.

* removes anarok *

[pauld]

Where TEF leads, the Adver are sure to follow. Eventually.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/mostpopular.var.2021175.mostviewed.mayor_hits_back_at_criticism_of_town.php

For all the snivelly ha-ha-ha lets fill some empty copy with a few cheap cracks of the article was infuriating if there's one really good way to make yourself look small-town, it's rolling out local dignitaries to do this kind of "Huff, Puff" piece

[Ardiles]

Couldn't agree more, Paul.  I think one of the the first steps to remedy the town's image problem should be for its leaders to develop a thicker skin and maybe a sense of humour.  The obligatory picture of a councillor with a gold chain round his neck standing next to a roundabout proclaiming 'We love it, here' does nothing to solve the problem.

This was happening every time someone had a pop in the 1980s and it's still happening now.  It's a shame that so little has happened in the last 25 years.  Other towns have reinvented their town/city centres in that time.  In Swindon, a few carpet warehouses became pubs about 10 years ago to create a drinking zone on Bridge Street...and that's about it.

[flammableBen]

I was having a conversation about how shit the Town Centre was with my good friend Dan last night. It really is a shit hole. Infact we were only there becasue he was buying the drinks and the Savoy is super cheap.

In fact Swindon has a bit of a nothingness problem. The Town Centre is an identikit town centre with the same shops you'd find any where else, added that it's lost the shine you might expect from such a plasticy thing and is generally a bit of a dump.

Then you've got the multitude of identical suburban estates, with there bendy cul de sac roads.

Could do with a bit of character really. Like a canal or something.

It does have it's nice bits although you'd probably need someone to show it to them.

Sorry I've gone a bit of a rant. I think I've just agreed with Ardiles in a not very eloquent way.

[BANGKOK RED]

One of the reasons that I ended up in Thailand was a sort of existence of nothing-ness. Despite me having a career, money, house ect. And about the only things that I looked forward to was Saturday afternoons in the pub, watching town and mountain biking in the countryside.

If I came from a town with a bit more "Umpfff" about it, then I may well still be there.