Where NOT to live in the UK

Does anyone just have one of those places in mind when people ask "Where should I live" and you just chime in...."Well I can tell you where NOT to live"?  I try to say this light heartedly but I have met my match as far and towns I simply do not want to be in.

 I hate to be grumpy but I have been working in Luton for about a month and a half now and well there is just nothing to like about the place. NOT ONE NICE THING IN LUTON. Terrible run down town centre, awful social atmosphere, terrible bus system and everyone pollutes the place sitting in traffic in there cars. The housing is absolutely dreadful, worse than the worse slum lord areas I have been in while working in the US for a news channel (lots of stories about poor housing).

No where nice to eat, people spit in the indoor shopping "mall" its freaking INDOORS! There are grandmothers my age standing around chaining cigs while fighting with their male counterparts at the bus stop... gah how can I blow off enough stream before work 

I never disliked a town so much, it really doesn't even feel like the same England when I step off the trains in the morning. 

Does anyone just have one of those places in mind when people ask "Where should I live" and you just chime in...."Well I can tell you where NOT to live"?  I try to say this light heartedly but I have met my match as far and towns I simply do not want to be in.

 I hate to be grumpy but I have been working in Luton for about a month and a half now and well there is just nothing to like about the place. NOT ONE NICE THING IN LUTON. Terrible run down town centre, awful social atmosphere, terrible bus system and everyone pollutes the place sitting in traffic in there cars. The housing is absolutely dreadful, worse than the worse slum lord areas I have been in while working in the US for a news channel (lots of stories about poor housing).

Reminds me a bit of Chatham. Where I live.

I hate to be grumpy but I have been working in Luton for about a month and a half now and well there is just nothing to like about the place. NOT ONE NICE THING IN LUTON.

HAHAHA!  I lived in Luton for about ~3 months. I try to pretend it didnt happen, and just say I lived in St. Albans!  Not once did we ever go out in Luton. We lived across from the train station (Midland Rd), so that was the extent of walking we did at night...to take the train to St. Albans or central London!  DB works in Dunstable, so Luton seemed to be the best place for him to live, since he didn't know much about the area before moving there.

I only went out shopping during daylight, and making sure i'd be in before 4pm.  It just didn't seem like the safest of places, so I also got used to not even carrying a purse.  It is a horrible town to consider as being "english"...most people walking around weren't British, and apparently, where the "mall" is now, there used to be a wonderful historic building, but in the 80's or so, they tore it down, and put up the ugly shopping centre you still see today...

Definitely never going back!  Anywhere in hertfordshire is a far better choice--Did I see on another post that you're moving to Harpenden, Colleen? or was that someone else?

Yes that's me, Harpenden in May. I am so sorry to here you had to live in Luton. Croydon is posh in comparison. It's a long commute at the moment but I look at it as a way of getting as far as I can from Luton

Does anyone just have one of those places in mind when people ask "Where should I live" and you just chime in...."Well I can tell you where NOT to live"? 

Stevenage.  The "modern" part looks like it was designed by The Royal Bureau of Concrete in 1974 and is populated almost entirely by people in Lonsdale sweatsuits with pit bull dogs and NY Yankees baseball caps turned sideways who have that look on their face that seems to say "I'd happily shoot you for your cell phone."  Bleh.

IMO, Reading gets my vote for being a little dull - you have to trudge into London to do anything interesting, city wise. Some of the surrounding countryside is lovely, though.

IMO, Reading gets my vote for being a little dull - you have to trudge into London to do anything interesting, city wise. Some of the surrounding countryside is lovely, though.

Wow if we are talking about places that are miserable to live in,  I would hardly compare Reading with Luton! 

Wow if we are talking about places that are miserable to live in,  I would hardly compare Reading with Luton! 

I'm not. I'm just responding to 'where NOT to live in the UK'. 

DH's grandma lives in Luton and man does it really seem like a hole.  Whenever we go down, we usually go out to pubs in the villages around Luton.

This thread makes me think of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crap_Towns

ETA: I forgot about Slough and Hull.

This thread makes me think of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crap_Towns

ETA: I forgot about Slough and Hull.

I work near Slough and can attest to it's destestableness. I would also throw Hayes into the mix, the nasty town centre with it's knife amnesty bin, the time I saw a man beating up a train guard with a bmx bike, the way it always feels so threatening even during the day *shudder*

Saw the BBC link, I knew Hackey was going to be on there too. It's the first time I saw "a lady of the night" when I was working on a film shoot there, at 4 am I was going to work and they were walking home

I work near Slough and can attest to it's destestableness. I would also throw Hayes into the mix, the nasty town centre with it's knife amnesty bin, the time I saw a man beating up a train guard with a bmx bike, the way it always feels so threatening even during the day *shudder*

I also used to work sometimes in Slough. Oh, and Bracknell is another on my list. Berkshire is lovely: just not the parts I am mentioning! 

Mr A told me last night that Lambeth supposedly has the highest crime rate for any council in all the UK (to which I replied "Good thing we don't live there").  A lot of people would probably list many places here in South London on the places not to live, but I love some of the places in Lambeth, Wandsworth, and so on.  I absolutely love it here, and while I wouldn't choose to live in Croyden, I think it gets a bad rap as well.

Personally, I would avoid living in Westminster or the Square Mile again.  Too expensive, crowded, noisey, and really difficult to get the things you need to run a household (surprisingly).  Plus, where I lived near Victoria was rife with pickpockets because of the tourists.  Sure seeing Westminster Abbey on a nearly daily basis and hearing Big Ben bong provided the wind was right never gets old, but a lot of the other stuff does.

I'm sort of glad we didn't seriously look in Luton and Slough though.  We were considering it.

If you think Slough is bad you should have been there 25 years ago! It was way worse. I don't mind it now, but I only go there for shopping a couple of times a month. Oh and they have a nice big Krispy Kreme cafe there. Even armpits of places have their good spots.  Not saying I'd want to live there mind you but I'd cope if I had to.  I'd prefer it over Brixton or Hackney any day!