Jokes aside can we all see an emerging pattern here. Most of England's once glorious towns have now entered a period of demise. Councils going bankrupt, not enough police and certainly not on the streets. Decrepit shopping precincts, failing public services....the list goes on. All the wealth from this country has been hoovered up but corporations and the elite. Not much hope on the horizon.
Yes, it's a similar story all over. They've gone and mined-out the resources that once sustained the High street, and still think they can squeeze it more. Town planners and sociology experts need reeducation urgently.
I'm glad you've shined a light on how much of a dump certain parts of here in Kent are. I get sick and tired of the media always portraying the South East as rolling in money. When in fact the North West and Eastern parts of the county are pretty destitute.
There shouldn't be one food bank in a country like the UK. The very fact that they exist shows appalling failure of government to provide for and care for it's citizens.
@ Graeme, it is not the job of the government to provide for you, it’s your responsibility to sort your own life out 🤦♀️🤦♀️ the corrupt Government is out of control and becoming more authoritarian by the week -
according to the Tories, food banks show how wonderful and charitable we all are. World-beating spin! And they use "levelling up" because they think it appeals to the 18-30 demographic (they play games, games have "levels" .. ) yes they think that little of people.
It kind of sends a shiver down my spine seeing the state of places now. These areas were never the best, but wow, they have gotten so much worse. The worst thing is, it is all over the country now. As much as I love the jokes on Turdtowns, it also highlights where we are heading socially and economically, and that is really sad.
Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham were decimated by the opening of Bluewater in 1999. I was a native of Medway and the shops in Chatham High Street used to have an excellent range of amenities, the huge building past the Pentagon Centre used to be an Allders in the old days. There was also a BHS, Marks and Spencers where Primark is and a Co-op. All in the past now. You should have taken a walk down Luton Road underneath the arches at the top of the High Street, that would have been an eye opener(you probably wouldn't have had your camera very long though). Additional, should really have mentioned this originally but Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey was home to the worlds first cargo flight when aviator John Moore Brabazon flew a pig in a basket across a field.
Not that Gravesend was in a great place to begin with. It used to be a major shipping hub, until containerisation happened and ships got bigger, so all the ships moved to Dartford. That leaves Gravesend with not a lot of business activity.
The thing all these towns have in common is (1) the loss of industries that gave well paying employment, and (2) the destruction of the high streets by the authorisation of huge out of town shopping centres and supermarkets. I would argue the second trend was even more catastrophic than the first. Sheerness once had a steelworks, a chemical factory, and a buzzing commercial port that employed large numbers and paid very good wages. It wasn't a heaven-on-earth but most people had money to spend, there wasn't the poverty there is now. The Medway towns had many cement plants, a Royal dockyard that employed 30,000 people, many factories making road pavers, cement mixers, aircraft etc.; and in fact there is still quite a bit of employment in manufacturing in Medway, now mostly smaller businesses - I run one, and it is very hard to recruit labour, and wages for skilled people are rocketing. My home town of Gravesend was a buzzing retail centre that attracted shoppers from miles around, it had Marks, Debenhams, Argos, Woolworths, BHS, etc etc, now all gone; and once boasted as many as 52 pubs, remarkable for the size of population, again now only half still struggling on. Once the massive Bluewater and Lakeside shopping centres opened, and all the supermarkets were allowed to build big superstores outside the town that were more convenient for car parking, there was nothing to take people to the high street so shops started to close so it became even less attractive, and so followed vicious spiral downwards. That meant business rate revenue dropped so the Council had to put up the business rates, putting even more retailers out of business. You only have to walk around Bluewater and Lakeside, and talk to the retailers there about their stratospheric rents, to see that there is still PLENTY of money in retail - but it isn't going near the town centres any more, it's going into the pockets of the big corporations who own the shopping centres, and those of the four big supermarket chains who own their own properties. The blame for all of this must lay with the urban planners at the Council, and the local councillors who approved all of these out of town developments, they were too blind to see they were shoving a knife in the heart of the retailers that pay their rates. Having authorised this destruction, they are now starting to talk about "15 minute towns" where people can walk between home, work and shops - but that was what we used to have, before these short sighted idiot planners and politicians destroyed them! Until we finally recognise the evil social consequences of "out of town shopping" and close all these places, the towns will never be able to recover. Sadly, it won't happen due to vested interests. Disgusted of Gravesend!
Never knew Sheerness had a chemical works. I think Sittingbourne lost a lot of decent paying jobs too, though that's just about near enough to London for commuting.
A great summary - I totally agree. It's the big developers who have sucked the life out of our towns, and much of the developers' profits go abroad into tax havens. I often hear about local councillors getting backhanders for approving all these "developments" but I don't know how true that is.
You put it so well. And this pattern has been repeated in many towns across the UK. I visited Chatham last year and saw some last remnants of faded gentility. A place with a past to be proud of.
Having visited a lot of places in Kent, I was fully expecting Gillingham to top the list being one of the most depressing towns I've ever visited, but after seeing and hearing about Sheerness, I don't think I'm surprised it came top despite having never visited personally. There's a lot of nice places in Kent particularly between Dover and Sussex.
Scrolled down to see where Sheerness ranked. Am a little surprised though that there's 6 towns on the Isle of Sheppey and only one made it. Maybe they couldn't stomach any more of the island after that.
@@katypreen9588 I've never been to Sheppey, but from what he was saying about the town wasn't surprised it was top, but before watching the video I would've put money on Gillingham being top of the list by far the worst town I've visited in Kent. Kent has a lot of nice towns especially on the south coast.
There's good places & bad places all over the UK. People say "oh Kent is posh" yet Medway reminds me of Glasgow. Kent isn't anything special. It's just a place like any other.
@@katypreen9588 I was surprised that Snodland didn't make the list. Or Tovill. Or Cuxton & Halling but the lad would probably have vanished if he went up that way.
@@katypreen9588 Yeah, I don't think he can have made it as far as Leysdown-on-Sea, which I admittedly haven't been to for about 20 years but which I found uniquely depressing to visit. Normally when I've visited a run-of-the-mill shithole, it's with a grim fascination but with Leysdown I remember leaving and thinking "my god...". But hey, maybe it's changed in the intervening couple of decades.
I've lived in several towns in Kent, and worked in Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham. Spent my early childhood in Sevenoaks, and my last abode was Eynsford. My memories of most Kentish towns are of sunny days and quaint villages and spectacular views. Mind you, this was nearly fifty years ago; luckily in 1980 I decided to emigrate to Vancouver, British Columbia, and now live in Kelowna, about 250 miles east. I can't tell you how glad I am that we left. That was the most depressing video I've seen in a long time. Keep up the good work!!
It’s great knowing there are people out there who aren’t afraid to shine a light on the true extent of poverty and neglect in England. For the new year, I think it would be wise (and easier on your wallet) to keep tackling England and Wales. I can only imagine how expensive Scotland and Northern Ireland would be, if they are on your agenda of course. North of the border there are plenty of turdtowns in the Central Belt to get stuck into, particularly Ayrshire, the Clyde and Forth valleys. If you’re looking to continue Poshtowns, the Aberdeen region is full of them. Some advice though, it’s huge and a very long journey to get to, let alone travel around. Thanks for all your hard work man, have a Merry Christmas!
@@heisenberg1271clearly no idea of the benefits system then. If people were comfortable on benefits they wouldn't be using food banks and living in temporary accommodation or on the street. Wake up.
Yes but just stop simply judging a town by it's high street and surrounding few streets! Gillingham for example is a big area geographically, and has some nice parts too.
I grew up in Kent, Gillingham and Chatham, but lived in Rainham, i can still recognize some of the buildings on your video. I'm going back 50 years ago and was fortunate enough to have left for pastures greener overseas. Came back for a visit in 1997 and was quite horrified how both towns had deteriorated so badly, very depressing. Margate was always a happy place as a trip to Dreamland and all the rides was our best time. We holidayed in Jaywick (which I believe is now in shocking condition). Very sad. They were very happy childhood memories for me. I guess everything changes with time.
Jaywick is number two on the Essex list 😅 . You had the right idea to go overseas! Potholes and terrible nightmare traffic on M2 and M20 just adds to the stress of it all!
@@emmadeal1105 TBH we are also suffering from monster and many potholes, no working traffic lights, street lights that are on by day, but off at night time, everything has become a sh*tshow where we live now, but at at least we still have the right to criticse and b*tch and moan where we are, oh and the weather is great too. Crime is off the scale stupid, but we are tough as nails where we live and dont take kak (sh*t) At least we have plenty of parking spaces and we usually have anything from 2 - 10 garages for cars, but if we left them in the street, there would be nothing left of them, hence the need for lotsa garages. They tried toll gates here but everyone refused to pay for them, so the government wasted their, or should I say, our tax money on a load of old cobblers for naught. so civil disobedience does pay off occassionally, depends upon how you do it, we played the long game of no pay. The only thing I miss in the UK is all the history, beautiful castles, stately homes and old Norman churches and the amazing Westminister etc. oh and battenburg cake, we cant get that. But we do have some of the worlds most beautiful beaches, so its a trade off really, quite happy to stay where we are.
@@wendyburrows4178 gosh where do you live now .. towns are depressing aren't they, everybody shops online .. that's killed the high streets. It's all coffee shops, nail bars, vape shops and hair salons! At least you've got the warmth! I like tidy looking towns and cities, Lisbon is a fave of mine .. you get back here and think what a state.
@@emmadeal1105 Africa. all our towns (or high streets as you guys refer to them) all went to hell years ago, too dangerous to walk or go there, shopping malls are the only way to go here, we have limited on line shopping here, we certainly dont have all the on line shopping available like you've got in the UK and as our post office died about 10 years ago, you cannot receive anything by post, likely you will never receive it, or if its just a letter you might get it 4 months later (if you're lucky) or a couple of years later, as for parcels, they will never make it, it would be stolen immediately, so ordering from overseas is expensive as it must be couriered. So yes, the towns are filthy and very depressing, wouldnt go there if you paid me to. We still have an excellent quality of life here though, definitely better than anywhere in Europe, especially these days. We grew up learning to only rely on yourself for everything, (theres no dole or social housing here) it definitely makes life much easier to know that you have to make a plan for yourself, no one else is gonna do it, there is next to no public transport here (the railways collapsed years ago and you wouldnt want to get a train anyway, even if there was one), everyone here drives otherwise you wouldnt be able to get anywhere. Taxis are very expensive and buses almost non existent. We do have ubers. Being self reliant is the best way to be, that way you owe no one nothing. Britain sadly has made everyone reliant on the government in too many ways.
That huge building in Margate is not part of Dreamland or a council block. It is a privately owned residential block and one of the worst examples of post war brutalist architecture, despite being listed.
It isn't hard to find boarded-up buildings in any town nowadays. Too many shops have shut because people don't go into town to shop anymore, they go online or they go to an out-of-town complex with acres of parking which is geared entirely to large chain stores. And yes, Bluewater may have contributed to the decline of nearby town centres but it was not the only reason; lots of the shops which have been boarded up were on their way out anyway.
I have lived, the London side within 10 miles of Bluewater and never visited to shop only twice to drop off and I see the attraction. Surrounding High Streets clogged with traffic, awkward parking and yer no real traffic around Bluewater and easy parking and,of course, every shop aligns with each other.
Bang on about Margate. ITS A DUMP. The media like to try and portray it as a trendy, hipster place, full of artists because Tracey Emin is from here and the Turner Gallery was built here. I live up the coast in Herne Bay and visited 6 months ago. The town centre was full of boarded up shops and the streets were full of rubbish. The Old Town, where all the trendies supposedly live, is 2 streets of "galleries" and overpriced cafes.
@@yaboi672 it has a lovely beach. And arcades if you like that sort of thing. It's a shame as it could be great. Maybe all the london hipster type DFLs will improve it. I hope so.
The other problem with Kent is that developers are busy covering whatever open land they can find with ugly housing estates. The UK’s fertility rate is below replacement levels yet we’re fed the lie that there’s a “housing crisis” and we need to keep destroying the countryside.
@@SingularityMedia Yes, and the crisis is this: our countryside is being destroyed by ugly housing estates that we don’t need, and housing prices are inflated in large part because the government distorts the market by providing social housing.
Kent has a problem of massive urban sprawl - meaning it only has small to mid size towns that don’t concentrate the residents on the local high street. Residents go to three different retail parks / other towns each shopping trip, thinning out their spend making each town centre vulnerable. Every local council keeps approving stupid fringe retail parks that suck life out of high streets and worsen traffic. They need to clean up town centres, build mansion style blocks and some taller, to concentrate people in town centres and get them focusing their spend and time in one place. Support it all with quality green spaces and community facilities and of course some doctors and dentists you can actually see. Until there is higher density and less sprawl, Kent will be on a decline.
In the early 80s I went to college in Greenhithe, midway between Dartford and Gravesend, and before I even clicked on the video I suspected they'd both be on the list
Grey houses, Grey weather, Grey pavements, Grey sofas, Grey carpets, Grey cars, Grey towels, Grey faces! How utterly depressing In these grey times! Well done for braving all that grey!
I've never been to Sheerness but if it's worse than Chatham it must be bloody horrible. Last time I was in Chatham I asked a woman in one of the shops if there were any nice pubs in town. She just laughed.
I visited the UK many times and I aways had great times there (except one time when the weather was really bad). There used to be a ferry service between Sheerness and Flushing (Vlissingen in Dutch). Unfortunately this was terminated in 1994.
Excellent, I've been waiting for my home county to get the Turdtowns treatment since I found the channel. I was shocked when Chatham was only in second but realised I'd forgotten Sheppey (I think most people try to forget about it). There are actually 3 prisons on the Isle of Sheppey and it's apparently where the 'alpha' variant of Covid came from. If you ever do a Lincolnshire video, I would be fascinated to know how Grimsby compares to other Turdtowns. I've travelled a lot in the UK and it's easily the most neglected place I've visited.
I've lived in Grimsby for the last 25 years. Suprisingly enough I moved here to find work and I found it, I've been gainly employed here for the last quarter of a century (although I now actually work from home.) Up until a year ago I thought this town was a hole - miserable people, low education, high unemployment, youth crime, drugs and a derelict town centre and high streets. Having watched Turdtowns now, I realise that these problems are not just in Grimsby, but affect the whole of the UK. Grimsby is no longer a shithole, it's just the same as every other small town in the UK. You can blame the death of the high street on out-of-town malls and internet shopping, you can blame youth crime and drug use on the lack of well-paid sustainable jobs and you could blame poor education levels on an education system that cares more about league tables than personal enrichment, but all of these combined factors are what's causing most of what you see in these videos. The next government has got it's work cut out.
I grew up in Ramsgate in the 70s and 80s and it was nice then, but I got out of Thanet in 1984 and rarely go back, when I have it is really sad to see the beach ruined and the shops decimated, inept local politicians have contributed to its decline, Margate was always terrible, a day trippers pit of horror. I’m surprised you missed off Maidstone, that is genuinely a horrific experience
Went to Ramsgate on a school trip circa 1978 aged 5!! It rained....Our teacher got us to collect seaweed for her garden...Lots of kids were sick on the coach...Happy to return to New Eltham!!
Agree with you, especially your comment on Maidstone ! I grew up just outside of this town in Allington during the 70's/80's. It was quite a nice place then. I moved away to Berkshire in the early 90's, but recently returned to Allington to care for my father. Maidstone is dreadful !! OMG !! Such a dump for a county town. Looks like not much has changed for the Medway towns though lol.
Brilliant video! Just one error that I noticed - your crime rate and average house price shown for Gillingham, actually states 'Dartford'. Just as an aside, I'm not surprised that many of the comments are pointing the demise upon one particular reason - what a surprise! The fact is, having worked across Kent for 25 years (it was the County I covered as a salesman), this decline has been ongoing for DECADES....not just the past couple of years. I do wonder, how many people who moan about town centre shops closing, ever consider this fact when they are shopping online with Amazon, etc? Great video - keep up the brilliant work mate.
I agree about the Amazon comment; but when everyone's broke what do you do? Buy wherever is cheapest. And if that's Amazon because Retail is too expensive, boom. High Street decimated
Honestly I want to but every time I try I realise im already behind schedule. It takes a very long time get around 8 towns. Winter filming hours are short too.
Chatham and Gillingham are not squeezed right up to the Thames .it is called the Medway towns because wait for it .....its around the river Medway!!! The clue is in the name.
In fifty years' time, after the apocalypse, when the world is a burning pit if radioactive waste, people will look back on these precious videos be shocked just how shit most of England was. Thank you for your service, Margaret, John, Tony, Dave and all the fuckwits that followed them.
There won't be any people after the apocalypse, let alone with memories to look back. Heavens forbid I am from Kent originally and luckily met my French wife there and we came to lovely France 50 years ago to live. I have never been back. I don't miss that crappy depressing climate or the junk food.
You should really do a whole episode on Sheppey....Its a notoriously terrible island...It has improved slightly now there is a permanent bridge. Previously there was a draw bridge that if it was raised meant the local police couldn't get onto the island to help!!! Also a fun fact : Some Motgers Do Av Em was based on Sheppey with Frank as a typical local!!!😅😅😅😅
@@retiredbore378 I think most people are not ready for radical change, and they thought they'd be less discriminated against in MH. people want to fit in and want to avoid their kids getting bullied at school. I kinda understand that transition.
During 9/11 someone in Chatham heard that The Pentagon had been attacked and hoped it was the shopping centre which had needed razing to the ground for years. Grew up around Medway, got the hell out 18 years ago for Australia where things are still trying to kill you but they generally aren't human. Solid list, particularly sad about the decline of Margate, loved visiting back when it was booming.
I was actually inside Chatham Pentagon and a workman had a transistor radio on announcing the Twin Tower being struck by a plane. Went home switched on TV just in time to see live Tower 2 struck. 2001.
And it's going downhill fast. They keep renovating office blocks into flats which are bought up by. London councils who fill them up with feral gang members.... Which has pretty much been the story of. Kent for decades
RUBBISH. Maidstone is quite nice, got good shopping, nice big green open spaces (Mote Park), good restaurants (Gem of Kent is great), and you can reach most places within the county easily, like Tenterden, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, Canterbury, even Chatham on this list here, which I think isn't really that bad. There are megabucks properties in King's Hill, not far away, a lot of American expats have houses there. Barming is also quite nice, just on the fringes of Maidstone. Crikey, if you really want to see one great big Turdtown, with lots of Turdboroughs, look no further than Greater London.......East Ham, Croydon, Hackney, Hornsey, Stratford, Brixton, the Isle of Dogs, and that's only to name the most obvious ones,
I live in Kent and I've just watched your video and I have this to say - everything you say is absolutely correct! I've been to all those places and was only in Gillingham a few weeks ago! (car service) Everything you've shown is as I know it! it sucks really how bad things are getting and a lot of the locals have just given up.
@@garyturner5739 Even without brexit things will likely have been worse anyway, Europe in itself is not doing very well currently, there's enough issues over there as well.
My sister went on an exchange trip to Germany with her school in the late 1970s. They went by ferry from Sheerness and I remember her saying it was a dump even then.
I once dated a girl from Orpington. I spent one Christmas with her parents, and was pleasantly suprised by how nice it was. She took me to Bluewater, which was a great shopping experience, although kind of stressful to drive to.
@@GrahamMacdonald-w9o Within one aside of working in Orpington. I got the job in 1991/92 and as I was about to leave, having agreed terms,my prospective Boss told me that he was off to the Caribbean and being new to the Business,I changed my mind and the whole course of my life:)
I’m surprised only two of the Medway towns made the list. Good to see you done a video in the south east. Unlike the your previous videos you a highlighting an area of the country that has both a geographic and economic advantage. Yet still has some extremely dire and depressed towns
Excellent, I've visited or commuted through some of these place when working in the construction industry. I got a little worried as the list went on, but you didn't disappoint, you put Sheerness on top spot. It doesn't even have a direct rail service to London. Another area is the Isle Of Grain. I feel sorry for anyone who lives on that desolate and isolated spit of land.
How come you missed out Trashford, sorry, Ashford? Maybe Councils will realise one day (When it's too late) that out of town shopping centres kill the real town centres. It happened at Trashford when they built "The Designer Outlet" and moved the Market too Bluewater did it for Dartford, Gravesend, Chatham & Gillingham to a certain extent. Westwood certainly messed up Ramsgate and Margate. Dover?? We all know what's messed that place up. Good video though.
I love in Ashford. To be honest, it's not that bad. Good places to eat, and shop. Lots of places to work. Town centre is a bit pants though. Easy access to lovely countryside is a plus.
I moved here some 23 years ago, not really a choice as it was affordable. To be honest I still rather like it. Maybe it grows on you like mould. I also remember it from the early 80,s and the change for the better is simply amazing. It's still not Canterbury mind you!
I’m originally from Kent born in Gravesend lived there till I was 6 ,I loved it .the road I spent my childhood in ,i heard all the houses were knocked down as it was so rough , it now has all new houses in its place .when I was a teenager I moved to isle of Sheppey with my parents lived there till I was 19 , I remember the great fair in sheerness the arcades ,all gone now , the pubs were good fun in the evening too . Sheppey school/Minster college was awful the teachers were terrible and felt I learnt nothing . We moved away in the late 90s to Cumbria , the town we moved to was awesome lots of night clubs and shops and close to the lakes too but has now gone right down hill ,hardly anything in the town ,loads of pubs and clubs and hotels gone just like most of the country’s towns , it’s a real shame what’s happening to these once great places
I had to stay in dartford for a week once in the 90's. I cant remember much from that decade, but how depressing dartford was is still very clear in my battered memory.
I have lived in Bexley, in this house, for 40 years and never stopped in Dartford and never had any inclination to look around. I passed through one or twice when The Dartford Tunnel approach roads were blocked. THat was fun..:)
When I first started driving I hated roundabouts too, but now I know how to drive I love how they keep traffic moving and reduce jams. Come back when you've been driving for a few years and you'll love Kent. Edit: There's a lot of green space in Medway too. Plenty of parks and places where you can go from the town centre to wilderness in a matter of minutes like Cuxton and the Lines Edit 2: Pocahontas there's a f**king monument at her grave it's by the river
For future visits, Essex would be worth a look. Some nice villages in the north of the county; Dedham, Langham, and Ardleigh, and Battlesbridge to name a few. In constant, you have awful towns like Southend, Basildon, Thurrock, and Colchester.
My daughter lives in Wivenhoe in Essex, quite close to Colchester. I'm surprised that Colchester is an 'awful' town, as I am quite impressed with it whenever I go there with her and my grandson. There is a lot of history there, and not a lot of visible dereliction.
I knew Sheerness would be #1! I used to travel through there regularly when there were ferries to Vlissingen (Olau Line, lovely ships). There was also the Sheerness Steelworks, gone now. Much later I discovered that my grandfather was born in Sheerness. His father had come down from the North East to work as shipwright in the Royal Dockyard, also now gone.
Man, England is falling apart at the seams and councils think "ah just put a rainbow flag on it, job done". seeing rainbows juxtaposed against derelict town squares is just extra depressing
Well unless my eyesight is failing, I didn't see one 'rainbow flag' in any of these towns? Would you care to point out where they were? Moreover, I don't think I've noticed a rainbow flag in ANY of the Turd Towns covered in this entire series.....but hey, let's not let fact get in the way of your BS, rhetoric and agenda of hate! 😂
11:34 get down to specsavers mate, also drive around ol blighty more youll see rainbow flags absolutely everywhere. theres nothing hateful or political about pointing out rainbow flags are plastered about in depressing dumps you hypersensitive baby
@@BarryAllenMagic Are you possibly jumping the gun just a little? I read the OP's post as being an inditement of hollow virtue signalling and not tackling actual problems. Living in a crime-ridden, run-down dump with bad schools does not help minorities or vulnerable groups. Too often I see politicians talking the talking - but not walking the walk. We are meant to be mollified with flags and taking the knee etc. I don't think that seeing these gestures juxtaposed against broken towns and schools not fit for the purpose as 'extra depressing' can be fairly described as 'an agenda of hate'.
@BarryAllenMagic not to mention this is a tory area lmao, wonder why this country is going to hell. Oh I know! It's those immigrants and gays! Not the government over the past 13 years!
Does anybody know why people you don't want to look at are particularly attracted to town centres? Like people who drink Special Brew for breakfast or those who keep themselves on a never ending spice trip? They seem to be drawn into the town centre somehow and seem to show up in nearly all of these videos.
It's because that's where the dealers are too. Harder to get drugs in a suburban cul-de-sac. Easier in the Town centre. Really all there is to it. These drugged up zombies are not rocket scientists.
As a kent resident I agree with most of this. I will just say that the listed building in Margate may be somewhat hideous, but it is somewhat cuclturally important as a remnant concrete architecture. Also isle of sheppey, you missed leysdown. That is a place I will never forget!
Little did I realize 30 years ago that when my 70-year old Mum was unwell and I could, barely, move with Gout and our dog accompanied us to the local Pharmacist all clinging to each other and limping along, that was going to be the highlight of my week's holiday in Leysdown...
Another great video, I’ve lived in Kent for nearly 20 years and would have picked the same 8 but added Maidstone and Ashford as a pair of overrated junkie filled hell holes. Sheerness was the obvious number 1 it’s tragic. The traffic in Kent is beyond ridiculous - it feels like you’re trapped by congestion and it’s 10 times worse since Brexit which was ironically and u fathomably supported in Kent - a county that relies on trade and travel with mainland Europe. 🤯
Your comment is ironic because when we joined The E E C in 1973 it was just a Trade deal with 6 affluent Countries. The E U with its 28 states became something completely different. If the Trade is much;less Post Brexit then how is the traffic 10 times worse?
@@petewelsh9978 Well only in this house for 40 years. lol To be fair, although my address is a Kent one,I am, literally,on the border of S E London and Kent in Bexley and my life means,I can, easily,avoid traffic as I have no need to go out during school runs or rush hours and know all the back streets as I am 69 years old. I know it is deceptive but I got home from Millwall last night in 21 minutes once I reached my car.
Kent remains a beautiful, mainly rural county despite the pockets of urban dereliction, which is happening throughout the country, due to factors that have already been described.
as a Margate local and lover I implore you to come in the summer! yes there's some run down buildings and it's dominated by Londoners, but there's bars, art galleries, loads of activities and things to do, it's busy and full of life and it's a great time, I really like it here
What about Ashford ? What a dump. I moved away 20 years ago, came back recently and couldn't believe it. Nothing but expensive houses and a dead high st.
I live in Medway and I think you were very kind in your description of Chatham. Most people I know avoid the high street. It says a lot about society when you see these failing areas.
Thank you for the honest appraisal of my home county. It's a big old area and certainly one of haves and have-nots. Chatham could easily be a nice place but would need investment and a bit of vision. The seaside towns will always struggle with unemployment and drugs.
I was born in London, but my family moved to Dartford. Before I left home in 92, Dartford and Gravesend was buzzing. When I left school I worked in Army and Navy department store in Gravesend and used to party a lot there too! Darford had Zens nightclub which would attract a few celebs. It was cool. The once place I didn't like was Strood. That area was weird. Im surprised it didn't make the list. The Isle of Sheppy was plain rachet. My mum almost bought a holiday home there! I'm glad that she didnt. We stayed in a friends holiday home there. It was so sketchy! It doesn't help that the councils don't really do much to invest in these areas. It's a shame, because they were really cool places to go back in ther heyday.
As a Kent native, I can agree the list was spot-on. Its hard to pick just 10 towns since Strood, Folkestone, Ashford could have made the list. So many traditional, historical towns have rotted away due to poverty, antisocial behaviour, non-assimilating immigration, overcrowding and so on. But Kent as a county still has a lot to offer - beaches, countryside, historical sites, shopping and close links to London making the county somewhere that, despite its problems, people will always want to live in.
Come back to Thanet in season and on a day it's not raining, I guarantee you will have a good time. Agree both towns High Streets need help but the people that know avoid the center of town as that's not where the fun is to be had.
You need to do a video on London boroughs. I live in Lambeth, and it's a fecking shit hole. Okay, it's not as bad as some UK bomb sites, but when you consider what some sheeple earn, it's scary bleak.
I think East & West Sussex are prime candidates for an episode of TT. Brighton and Crawley are such wretched hovels that they warrant their own dedicated videos.
Brighton is lovely. Only places I can think of that'd make it are Hastings, Hailsham, Newhaven and Crawley. I can't comment on places like worthing as I've never been there though I agree crawley is an arse pit.
Hastings and Newhaven are definitely contenders, but I can’t agree with you about Brighton; it is one of the worst cities I can think of. On the other hand, I quite like Hove 🤷🏻♂️
@@SutekhTheDestroyer Hove is the tunbridge wells of sussex, no soul. Aside from the roads in centre being annoying and of course being worse than the almighty eastbourne Brighton is a great place especially compared to other cities of the same size
I like the adage at the end of the Gravesend entry that there's a lot of history there and a good tidy up would really help the place. Gravesend is just like lots of places in the UK, suffering from an economic downturn, but of all the places on here I think it could have the most potential for an upswing when, or if, the country manages to get back on its feet.
Can’t believe Dover isn’t higher. It’s desperately in need of help. So many of these coastal towns have been forgotten. The irony that most vote for parties who will do them over every chance they get is vivid.
I think you should visit some more areas in the south to highlight the poverty there and continue to quash the rumours that it is paved with gold. Poverty can be even worse in some ways due to the higher cost of living. You should go to Hertfordshire. The house prices and cost of living are insane, but there is so much poverty as well as turdtowns, particularly areas like Waltham Cross, Cheshunt, Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City and Watford.
Liked the part about Sheerness. I bought a house in Queenborough , (a little more inland on the Isle of Sheppey), for 45k in 1999. Sold it in 2002 for 85k. Had I hung on for another 18 months it would have been worth around 125k, (after they built the new bridge)! Can’t complain though. The buyer was a hard working guy with a young family and I’m sure he’d do well when he sold it.
Kent resident here - surprised Gravesend wasn't placed higher, considering the absolute state it is in. And yeah, the one way system is really annoying - driving there is an absolute nightmare if it's your first time.
Can't believe you haven't done Hertfordshire yet. Its close to london with plenty of turdtowns and relatively small compared to most counties so easy to get around. I know Hertfordshire really well. More than happy to help.
Yes, good idea to do Hertfordshire, it's too often only thought of as a prosperous county. Also Buckinghamshire and Surrey would be good for same reasons.
I was born in Kent and lived there until I was 25. Then I left the country and haven't looked back since. Seeing this video only reaffirms my life choices. Kent does have some lovely towns and villages, if you have the money to live there though......
Great video! I live in Sevenoaks- it's like a safe bubble. And being LGBT, I feel confident and safe in the town- I'm very lucky. Most who grow up locally have to move out of the area, as the average house price is £773,000 odd. Madness! 3 bed semi ex council houses go for £650-695k... fast trains to london (London Bridge in 20-25ish mins, Charing Cross about 35ish mins). Lots of keyless Range Rovers and BMWs been stolen recently- I know of at least 6 in 10 days. And mega shoplifting problems- people come from outside areas and plunder what they can (I lived in the town centre opposite a suprrmarket and saw many shoplifters every single day) Dartford traffic... I know about that! Someone sneezes and the M25 ia solid, with Bexleyheath and Dartford like a car park. Amd the thing I like about Chatham- a lot of C.A.T.S. Eyes (Jill Gascoigne) was filmed at the dockyards lol. Sheerness is a very strange place...feels like you've gone back 30 years but not in a good way! But I know people who lived there and were very happy there. Cheers for the upload, enjoyed it.
I worked in Sevenoaks in the 1980s and it was a rare day when you didn't see a Rolls-Royce there. As you write, Patsy, the house prices are eye-watering. They were steep forty years ago and, when I looked in the estate agents windows there last September, the situation has become even more barmy.
It's a shame Margate made this list, it used to be such a nice place, I'm going back to the late 70's in to the 80's and 90's. Along the seafront there was loads of amusement arcades, there was a pier that had either a penny arcade or half penny arcade, can't remember which, long time ago. There was also a little shopping arcade which had a tattoo parlour and a popular joke shop, that had everything and it was always packed with customers. In the summer months train loads of families would arrive from London, trying to find a spot on the beach was hard. Then there was Dreamland, what an amusement park that was, awesome place. Radio 1 used to do a roadshow in the summer, every week they would broadcast from a different place and Margate was 1 of those places. In '96 me and my wife couldn't afford a proper honeymoon so we had a day trip to Margate, was a great day. Can't forget Only Fools and Horses Jolly Boys Outing to Margate. The place is hardly recognizable now to what it was back then.
I was born and grew up in Gillingham. Back in the sixties and seventies, there was nothing wrong with the place. Full of history, a nice park, sports centre, riverside walks, proper shops, the lot. Revisited for the first time since 1988 in 2010, and was astonished to find that you could barely get into any of the remaining "proper" shops because the high street was utterly clogged with street trader market stalls, selling tat of various sorts. You could barely see the real shops behind the stalls. It looked like market day in the Punjab. Everything about the place was cheap, tawdry, run-down and depressing. It was a great disappointment, and I felt it deserved a higher placement on your list!
Thanks for taking my suggestion of doing Kent! Luckily, I live in Canterbury, which is one of the few non-turd towns/cities in Kent. The county is a scummy place, overall.
I completely agree with this, I'm from Dartford and used to live near the bridge, it took my dad over 2 hours to drive home from work and he worked less than 2 miles away. Dartford traffic doesn't just affect Dartford, it affects South East London, Essex & Kent as all connecting motorways gets jammed. Clubbing in Dartford is s**t too (worse than Chatham on that front)😂😂
I live near there too and know what you mean alas?! Particularly around 5pm on a Friday up the top of Princes Road so too?? I don't go there now-best to avoid it too if you can?!
@@BruceDanton-br9bw Yeah it's a nightmare, I normally head down backroads to avoid it through Brent Lane, Pilgrim's way and that near the M25 roundabout
I've lived in Medway all my life, and a lot of my childhood memories are from Gills and Chatham. It's a pretty rough place, I've walked past people passed out in the highstreets a lot. Chatham 'spoons is pretty decent, though. I live in Rochester and since Chatham and Gills have no nightlife, all the people there come here and the weekends are a nightmare
A few years back i was quite disturbed to find kent has about 40 unsolved murders which is a staggering amount of cold cases compared to any other county. Some of the cases i read about in Ashford and other towns were really quite creepy
If you want to know how we cope with the traffic in Dirtford, we don't. Especially in October-December where the commuter traffic and the Bluewater shopping mall traffic get in each other's way. I used to work out near Bluewater in Crossways Business Park and from October to December it was often just leave my car at work and walk home along the bus route, hoping a bus would eventually escape the gridlock enough to get into the bus lane. It's why Dartford has so many takeaways, you can;t get to the shops so pay someone on an e-bike to do it for you. I'd say the way around the traffic was to buy a motorbike but I gave up on that after having 3 nicked in 4 years and my insurance going through the roof. Up until recently Dirtford was still a town with big local employers like Glaxo and Barclays Bank but after Barclays moved their call centre offshore and the Glaxo site got a load of new build housing slapped over it Dirtford morphed into a commuter town. We were supposed to get crossrail but they stopped it at Scabbey Wood instead so even the commuters have it shit, crawling through the sidings at 5mph until they can change to the Lizzy line or the DLR.
I visited Ramsgate a few weeks ago and came to the same conclusion - nice seafront, shame about the town centre. Whitstable has one of the dreariest seafronts I've ever seen. Herne Bay is quite nice to spend a couple of hours in though. If you visit Essex you'll need to do a two-parter.
I live in one of the featured places and I love it, Poverty and bad planning doesn't look good anywhere. My town has and has always had it's problems it also has and has always had a good strong community of people who care and look out for each other scruffy or not.
The "view" at 14:44 was that which I saw from the room where I was born, although I remember the 'Family Amusements' building as 'Harry's Bingo'. I was told that Sheerness was known as 'Sheernasty' in the Royal Navy, so the decline which started when the dockyard closed in 1960 started from quite a low point. I visited this year for the first time in a long time, and the best that can be said is that it was not as bad as I was expecting. On the bright side, Sheppey United did reach the first round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history this season, so it's not all doom and gloom on the Island. They did get stuffed though.
I have been to all eight of the selected towns in this video in the last 18 months and detect a common thread. You concentrated on the town centres which, in Kent as elsewhere in the UK and further afield, have been deserted by a large proportion of the population, especially those with cars. As was mentioned, in all fairness, Gillingham's High Street is rather depressing but there is a decent out-of-town shopping centre at Hempstead Valley. On another point, Ramsgate has got quite a lot of decent architecture - much designed by Auguste Pugin or one of his family - and the seafront from the marina to the old railway tunnel is pretty smart. Chatham has got swathes of leafy streets as you head uphill from the Medway towards the M2 motorway. However, I can't argue with Sheerness being top (or bottom?) of the pile and I agree with the comments about Gravesend and Dartford.
Very very lazy post. I live in Ramsgate and it's fantastic. Like a lot of towns the high street is tired. What's wrong with art shops? It has a beach somewhere? Couldn't be arsed to even walk down there. It has a beautiful sandy beach which stretches for miles. Go a little bit off the town and there are beautiful regency squares. There are also great parks. The nightlife and sense of community are second to none. Think again. I'd like to ask one question. What makes you an expert? In future before you totally diss a town take a little bit more time to look round properly.
Couldn't agree more. On a lovely summer's day, it would be hard to beat Ramsgate. Great walks, amazing sunsets and a Wetherspoons (don't laugh!) with the most beautiful far-sweeping views across the sea. On a clear day, you can see the white cliffs of France. Also, we have the most varied architecture anywhere outside of Bath, tons of amazing history, fresh sea air and to cap it all you can be out in the countryside in two shakes of a lambs tail. Is it perfect? Of course not. The advent of Westwood X shopping centre put paid to the high streets of the three Thanet towns but, like the phoenix, Ramsgate is rising again, slowly but surely. Anywhere in the UK is dismal and depressing when seen through the lens of a filthy, grey, rainy day. I know many people who have moved from all over the country to Ramser and they all seem to like it just fine. Also, there is nothing more enchanting than dining out by the side of the beautiful harbour, the only Royal harbour in the UK. We are blessed with a huge variety of good restaurants and no visit to Ramsgate would be complete without a stroll to Pegwell and a stop-off in one of the pretty pubs there.
Hi from Ireland.. We visited the Kent area in summer 2022 on our way back from France. I also presumed this would be an affluent, manicured and well cared for neck of the woods with what I imagined would be a respectable, well off, population in close proximity to London and it's financial might.. But God what a let down. The whole county is a mess. The litter is shocking and isn't far off something youd see in Pakistan or some other disfunctional shithole.. We often visit the UK and I can say over the past twenty odd years there has been a definite decline in your heritage, culture, population etc... How did it all go so wrong so fast?..
You're guna get that with so many lefty uk haters living here . Attacking our past n continually saying the English are all racists n saying our flag is racist , all of this promoted by lefty socialist councils .they can't even clear litter up ! It's everywhere n shameful 🤨😖
I grew up in Chatham and all my family are from Gillingham. As others have said, both towns were really heavily hit by the closure of the dockyard. So many of my ancestors worked there -- it was the main source of decent jobs for working class men for literally hundreds of years. Now that it's closed, what's left? Nearly everyone I went to school with left Medway for London because there are so few good jobs in Medway. Every time I visit, the towns seem more and more run down. Love that you noted the location of the Gills, as I don't think that's recognised enough. I'm very wary of the club's desire to relocate to a more rural setting. It's the beating heart of Gillingham and I'd hate to see it moved.
the decline decay poverty is more worse than anyone can imagine in uk yet the councils like to sweep them under the rug we need to know recognising the area is bad or in decline is the first step to improving somewhere and not blindingly defending it like some like to do
It’s a managed decline….. Eventually the developers will swoop in and ( with the backhander to the councils) make a fortune turning all the shit into luxury apartments. This trend is happening all over the UK.
*River Medway not The River Thames* my bad!
The Kent Tourism Board will dislike this video and refuse to endorse it.
@@NihilisticHedonism I’m sure all the other councils endorsed my videos 😂
I would become depressed just by visiting some of the places you've been to let alone living there.@@Turdtowns
I’m more disappointed that you didn’t mention Rochester loosing its city status due to an admin error.
5:13 Also Dover isn't famous for the channel tunnel, since it's not in Dover, but Folkestone.
Jokes aside can we all see an emerging pattern here. Most of England's once glorious towns have now entered a period of demise. Councils going bankrupt, not enough police and certainly not on the streets. Decrepit shopping precincts, failing public services....the list goes on. All the wealth from this country has been hoovered up but corporations and the elite. Not much hope on the horizon.
In a word.. Neoliberalisme.
It's all going to plan, and bizarrely people keep voting for it.
Yeah but immigrants.
been thinking same for a while. More a social economic recording of the effects of where we are on local places and people after all that’s happened
@@Meddled
Yes, the tories and their friends are making fortunes from re placement, they tax borrow and print, then funnel it to their friends.
Yes, it's a similar story all over. They've gone and mined-out the resources that once sustained the High street, and still think they can squeeze it more. Town planners and sociology experts need reeducation urgently.
I'm glad you've shined a light on how much of a dump certain parts of here in Kent are. I get sick and tired of the media always portraying the South East as rolling in money. When in fact the North West and Eastern parts of the county are pretty destitute.
It's crazy how people think the roads down south are paved with gold
We relocated to the north, and I was genuinely asked if Kent had pot holes in the road
The perception from outside the UK is that Kent is/was until Turdtowns, lovely. I shit you not.
The garden of England, they call it. Basically the entire place is rolling hills and a land of milk and honey
The only thing really separating it from the North is proximity to London and the good jobs.
There shouldn't be one food bank in a country like the UK. The very fact that they exist shows appalling failure of government to provide for and care for it's citizens.
@ Graeme, it is not the job of the government to provide for you, it’s your responsibility to sort your own life out 🤦♀️🤦♀️ the corrupt Government is out of control and becoming more authoritarian by the week -
Very true. There especially shouldnt be any food banks whilst the RF live in the lap of luxury (for free) at the expense of the tax payer.
They are political.
Now! That is very true
according to the Tories, food banks show how wonderful and charitable we all are. World-beating spin! And they use "levelling up" because they think it appeals to the 18-30 demographic (they play games, games have "levels" .. ) yes they think that little of people.
It kind of sends a shiver down my spine seeing the state of places now. These areas were never the best, but wow, they have gotten so much worse. The worst thing is, it is all over the country now. As much as I love the jokes on Turdtowns, it also highlights where we are heading socially and economically, and that is really sad.
That's what u get when authorities n gov. concentrate on looking after illegal immigrants n spend millions on em. Go figure - result = SHITE !
Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham were decimated by the opening of Bluewater in 1999. I was a native of Medway and the shops in Chatham High Street used to have an excellent range of amenities, the huge building past the Pentagon Centre used to be an Allders in the old days. There was also a BHS, Marks and Spencers where Primark is and a Co-op. All in the past now. You should have taken a walk down Luton Road underneath the arches at the top of the High Street, that would have been an eye opener(you probably wouldn't have had your camera very long though).
Additional, should really have mentioned this originally but Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey was home to the worlds first cargo flight when aviator John Moore Brabazon flew a pig in a basket across a field.
Luton road being appropriate as Luton is one of the ultimate turdtowns.
Not that Gravesend was in a great place to begin with. It used to be a major shipping hub, until containerisation happened and ships got bigger, so all the ships moved to Dartford. That leaves Gravesend with not a lot of business activity.
@@cjmillsnun yeah, Luton is only known due to being a place where real English people are in the bloody minority! That is sad.
I remember getting dragged around Allders in Chatham as a kid. And Rochester market for what seemed like an eternity.
Blimey, I forgot about Allders! That was like the posh department store for us Sheppey folk on our day out shopping in Chatham 🤣
The thing all these towns have in common is (1) the loss of industries that gave well paying employment, and (2) the destruction of the high streets by the authorisation of huge out of town shopping centres and supermarkets. I would argue the second trend was even more catastrophic than the first.
Sheerness once had a steelworks, a chemical factory, and a buzzing commercial port that employed large numbers and paid very good wages. It wasn't a heaven-on-earth but most people had money to spend, there wasn't the poverty there is now. The Medway towns had many cement plants, a Royal dockyard that employed 30,000 people, many factories making road pavers, cement mixers, aircraft etc.; and in fact there is still quite a bit of employment in manufacturing in Medway, now mostly smaller businesses - I run one, and it is very hard to recruit labour, and wages for skilled people are rocketing. My home town of Gravesend was a buzzing retail centre that attracted shoppers from miles around, it had Marks, Debenhams, Argos, Woolworths, BHS, etc etc, now all gone; and once boasted as many as 52 pubs, remarkable for the size of population, again now only half still struggling on.
Once the massive Bluewater and Lakeside shopping centres opened, and all the supermarkets were allowed to build big superstores outside the town that were more convenient for car parking, there was nothing to take people to the high street so shops started to close so it became even less attractive, and so followed vicious spiral downwards. That meant business rate revenue dropped so the Council had to put up the business rates, putting even more retailers out of business. You only have to walk around Bluewater and Lakeside, and talk to the retailers there about their stratospheric rents, to see that there is still PLENTY of money in retail - but it isn't going near the town centres any more, it's going into the pockets of the big corporations who own the shopping centres, and those of the four big supermarket chains who own their own properties.
The blame for all of this must lay with the urban planners at the Council, and the local councillors who approved all of these out of town developments, they were too blind to see they were shoving a knife in the heart of the retailers that pay their rates. Having authorised this destruction, they are now starting to talk about "15 minute towns" where people can walk between home, work and shops - but that was what we used to have, before these short sighted idiot planners and politicians destroyed them! Until we finally recognise the evil social consequences of "out of town shopping" and close all these places, the towns will never be able to recover. Sadly, it won't happen due to vested interests.
Disgusted of Gravesend!
Never knew Sheerness had a chemical works. I think Sittingbourne lost a lot of decent paying jobs too, though that's just about near enough to London for commuting.
@@chrismanners9091 Sheppey Glue and Chemical Works was well known when I was young.
A great summary - I totally agree. It's the big developers who have sucked the life out of our towns, and much of the developers' profits go abroad into tax havens. I often hear about local councillors getting backhanders for approving all these "developments" but I don't know how true that is.
Excellent summary 👏
You put it so well. And this pattern has been repeated in many towns across the UK. I visited Chatham last year and saw some last remnants of faded gentility. A place with a past to be proud of.
Having visited a lot of places in Kent, I was fully expecting Gillingham to top the list being one of the most depressing towns I've ever visited, but after seeing and hearing about Sheerness, I don't think I'm surprised it came top despite having never visited personally. There's a lot of nice places in Kent particularly between Dover and Sussex.
Scrolled down to see where Sheerness ranked. Am a little surprised though that there's 6 towns on the Isle of Sheppey and only one made it. Maybe they couldn't stomach any more of the island after that.
@@katypreen9588 I've never been to Sheppey, but from what he was saying about the town wasn't surprised it was top, but before watching the video I would've put money on Gillingham being top of the list by far the worst town I've visited in Kent. Kent has a lot of nice towns especially on the south coast.
There's good places & bad places all over the UK. People say "oh Kent is posh" yet Medway reminds me of Glasgow.
Kent isn't anything special. It's just a place like any other.
@@katypreen9588 I was surprised that Snodland didn't make the list. Or Tovill. Or Cuxton & Halling but the lad would probably have vanished if he went up that way.
@@katypreen9588 Yeah, I don't think he can have made it as far as Leysdown-on-Sea, which I admittedly haven't been to for about 20 years but which I found uniquely depressing to visit.
Normally when I've visited a run-of-the-mill shithole, it's with a grim fascination but with Leysdown I remember leaving and thinking "my god...".
But hey, maybe it's changed in the intervening couple of decades.
Chatham isn’t by the Thames, it’s the River Medway….hence the term Medway towns.
I've lived in several towns in Kent, and worked in Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham. Spent my early childhood in Sevenoaks, and my last abode was Eynsford.
My memories of most Kentish towns are of sunny days and quaint villages and spectacular views. Mind you, this was nearly fifty years ago; luckily in 1980 I decided to emigrate to Vancouver, British Columbia, and now live in Kelowna, about 250 miles east. I can't tell you how glad I am that we left. That was the most depressing video I've seen in a long time. Keep up the good work!!
You have to be insane to remain in this country.
True, but the winters are too harsh up there
Not where I live pal. Just got to get used to forest fires and the odd cold snap. Minus 22 today. !!!
It’s great knowing there are people out there who aren’t afraid to shine a light on the true extent of poverty and neglect in England. For the new year, I think it would be wise (and easier on your wallet) to keep tackling England and Wales. I can only imagine how expensive Scotland and Northern Ireland would be, if they are on your agenda of course. North of the border there are plenty of turdtowns in the Central Belt to get stuck into, particularly Ayrshire, the Clyde and Forth valleys. If you’re looking to continue Poshtowns, the Aberdeen region is full of them. Some advice though, it’s huge and a very long journey to get to, let alone travel around. Thanks for all your hard work man, have a Merry Christmas!
Cumbernauld is the worst town in the country
@@heisenberg1271clearly no idea of the benefits system then. If people were comfortable on benefits they wouldn't be using food banks and living in temporary accommodation or on the street. Wake up.
@@llanieliowe794honestly of the HMRC
Yes but just stop simply judging a town by it's high street and surrounding few streets! Gillingham for example is a big area geographically, and has some nice parts too.
I grew up in Kent, Gillingham and Chatham, but lived in Rainham, i can still recognize some of the buildings on your video. I'm going back 50 years ago and was fortunate enough to have left for pastures greener overseas. Came back for a visit in 1997 and was quite horrified how both towns had deteriorated so badly, very depressing.
Margate was always a happy place as a trip to Dreamland and all the rides was our best time. We holidayed in Jaywick (which I believe is now in shocking condition). Very sad. They were very happy childhood memories for me.
I guess everything changes with time.
Jaywick is number two on the Essex list 😅 . You had the right idea to go overseas! Potholes and terrible nightmare traffic on M2 and M20 just adds to the stress of it all!
@@emmadeal1105 TBH we are also suffering from monster and many potholes, no working traffic lights, street lights that are on by day, but off at night time, everything has become a sh*tshow where we live now, but at at least we still have the right to criticse and b*tch and moan where we are, oh and the weather is great too. Crime is off the scale stupid, but we are tough as nails where we live and dont take kak (sh*t) At least we have plenty of parking spaces and we usually have anything from 2 - 10 garages for cars, but if we left them in the street, there would be nothing left of them, hence the need for lotsa garages. They tried toll gates here but everyone refused to pay for them, so the government wasted their, or should I say, our tax money on a load of old cobblers for naught. so civil disobedience does pay off occassionally, depends upon how you do it, we played the long game of no pay. The only thing I miss in the UK is all the history, beautiful castles, stately homes and old Norman churches and the amazing Westminister etc. oh and battenburg cake, we cant get that. But we do have some of the worlds most beautiful beaches, so its a trade off really, quite happy to stay where we are.
@@wendyburrows4178 gosh where do you live now .. towns are depressing aren't they, everybody shops online .. that's killed the high streets. It's all coffee shops, nail bars, vape shops and hair salons! At least you've got the warmth! I like tidy looking towns and cities, Lisbon is a fave of mine .. you get back here and think what a state.
@@emmadeal1105 Africa. all our towns (or high streets as you guys refer to them) all went to hell years ago, too dangerous to walk or go there, shopping malls are the only way to go here, we have limited on line shopping here, we certainly dont have all the on line shopping available like you've got in the UK and as our post office died about 10 years ago, you cannot receive anything by post, likely you will never receive it, or if its just a letter you might get it 4 months later (if you're lucky) or a couple of years later, as for parcels, they will never make it, it would be stolen immediately, so ordering from overseas is expensive as it must be couriered. So yes, the towns are filthy and very depressing, wouldnt go there if you paid me to. We still have an excellent quality of life here though, definitely better than anywhere in Europe, especially these days. We grew up learning to only rely on yourself for everything, (theres no dole or social housing here) it definitely makes life much easier to know that you have to make a plan for yourself, no one else is gonna do it, there is next to no public transport here (the railways collapsed years ago and you wouldnt want to get a train anyway, even if there was one), everyone here drives otherwise you wouldnt be able to get anywhere. Taxis are very expensive and buses almost non existent. We do have ubers. Being self reliant is the best way to be, that way you owe no one nothing. Britain sadly has made everyone reliant on the government in too many ways.
its odd how comedy and poverty mix so well together. bravo.
That huge building in Margate is not part of Dreamland or a council block. It is a privately owned residential block and one of the worst examples of post war brutalist architecture, despite being listed.
Yep, Arlington House or whatever it is called is truly an ocular assault.
It's a fright. I couldn't believe it when I first saw it. Monstrosity.
@@misst.e.a.187 That pretty much sums up Margate too.
The audacity to charge over 350K for homes in Margate.
It’s a beauty
It isn't hard to find boarded-up buildings in any town nowadays. Too many shops have shut because people don't go into town to shop anymore, they go online or they go to an out-of-town complex with acres of parking which is geared entirely to large chain stores. And yes, Bluewater may have contributed to the decline of nearby town centres but it was not the only reason; lots of the shops which have been boarded up were on their way out anyway.
I have lived, the London side within 10 miles of Bluewater and never visited to shop only twice to drop off and I see the attraction.
Surrounding High Streets clogged with traffic, awkward parking and yer no real traffic around Bluewater and easy parking and,of course, every shop aligns with each other.
Bang on about Margate. ITS A DUMP. The media like to try and portray it as a trendy, hipster place, full of artists because Tracey Emin is from here and the Turner Gallery was built here. I live up the coast in Herne Bay and visited 6 months ago. The town centre was full of boarded up shops and the streets were full of rubbish. The Old Town, where all the trendies supposedly live, is 2 streets of "galleries" and overpriced cafes.
i live in margate and I agree, this place really is overhyped but its alright now in the summer i guess
@@yaboi672 it has a lovely beach. And arcades if you like that sort of thing. It's a shame as it could be great. Maybe all the london hipster type DFLs will improve it. I hope so.
@@rickiecheese36 i dont like the dfls personally, they clog up all the roads and they litter all the beaches
The other problem with Kent is that developers are busy covering whatever open land they can find with ugly housing estates. The UK’s fertility rate is below replacement levels yet we’re fed the lie that there’s a “housing crisis” and we need to keep destroying the countryside.
There IS a housing crisis. 🤷
@@SingularityMedia Yes, and the crisis is this: our countryside is being destroyed by ugly housing estates that we don’t need, and housing prices are inflated in large part because the government distorts the market by providing social housing.
@@TP-om8of there are too few houses because there are too many foreigners being let in. Simple as.
@@lonelyharvest408 Exactly. And that’s the only reason our open spaces are being destroyed.
Kent has a problem of massive urban sprawl - meaning it only has small to mid size towns that don’t concentrate the residents on the local high street. Residents go to three different retail parks / other towns each shopping trip, thinning out their spend making each town centre vulnerable. Every local council keeps approving stupid fringe retail parks that suck life out of high streets and worsen traffic. They need to clean up town centres, build mansion style blocks and some taller, to concentrate people in town centres and get them focusing their spend and time in one place. Support it all with quality green spaces and community facilities and of course some doctors and dentists you can actually see. Until there is higher density and less sprawl, Kent will be on a decline.
In the early 80s I went to college in Greenhithe, midway between Dartford and Gravesend, and before I even clicked on the video I suspected they'd both be on the list
Moving to Chatham destroyed my mind. 12 years before I escaped... with the mental scar that will never leave me.
Why? It was because of gipsies?
Grey houses,
Grey weather,
Grey pavements,
Grey sofas,
Grey carpets,
Grey cars,
Grey towels,
Grey faces!
How utterly depressing
In these grey times!
Well done for braving all that grey!
50 shades of grey in the uk
Should have called it greys end!
😅
@@Azrael1st Hilarious! 🤣
I think that's why grey is such a popular decor color. Maybe it's the way everyone feels and sees the world.
You should come to the States, you'd never run out of content with all our Turdtowns!
There are loads of people that do these videos "joe & Nicole" Notice they never produce any content at night!!!!! Some of the videos click on 7m+
I've never been to Sheerness but if it's worse than Chatham it must be bloody horrible. Last time I was in Chatham I asked a woman in one of the shops if there were any nice pubs in town. She just laughed.
How sad. When I worked there in the 70's, every other building was a pub, Navy town the reason. Now I live in Canada... phew.
Ignorant woman. The Firkin Pub ( Old Post Office ) is a Weatherspoons at 14 Railway st.
I visited the UK many times and I aways had great times there (except one time when the weather was really bad). There used to be a ferry service between Sheerness and Flushing (Vlissingen in Dutch). Unfortunately this was terminated in 1994.
In summer holidays there are a lot of cars with EU number plates NL ( Nederland) around Rochester, they holiday at Allhallows Park.
Excellent, I've been waiting for my home county to get the Turdtowns treatment since I found the channel. I was shocked when Chatham was only in second but realised I'd forgotten Sheppey (I think most people try to forget about it). There are actually 3 prisons on the Isle of Sheppey and it's apparently where the 'alpha' variant of Covid came from.
If you ever do a Lincolnshire video, I would be fascinated to know how Grimsby compares to other Turdtowns. I've travelled a lot in the UK and it's easily the most neglected place I've visited.
Prisons = Jobs
Boston would be a good one to cover for Lincolnshire
I've lived in Grimsby for the last 25 years. Suprisingly enough I moved here to find work and I found it, I've been gainly employed here for the last quarter of a century (although I now actually work from home.)
Up until a year ago I thought this town was a hole - miserable people, low education, high unemployment, youth crime, drugs and a derelict town centre and high streets. Having watched Turdtowns now, I realise that these problems are not just in Grimsby, but affect the whole of the UK. Grimsby is no longer a shithole, it's just the same as every other small town in the UK.
You can blame the death of the high street on out-of-town malls and internet shopping, you can blame youth crime and drug use on the lack of well-paid sustainable jobs and you could blame poor education levels on an education system that cares more about league tables than personal enrichment, but all of these combined factors are what's causing most of what you see in these videos.
The next government has got it's work cut out.
@@martindavis3393 You really think the system cares about the ordinary person?
@@reanukeeves2k77 He doesn't speak Polish:)
I grew up in Ramsgate in the 70s and 80s and it was nice then, but I got out of Thanet in 1984 and rarely go back, when I have it is really sad to see the beach ruined and the shops decimated, inept local politicians have contributed to its decline, Margate was always terrible, a day trippers pit of horror. I’m surprised you missed off Maidstone, that is genuinely a horrific experience
Went to Ramsgate on a school trip circa 1978 aged 5!! It rained....Our teacher got us to collect seaweed for her garden...Lots of kids were sick on the coach...Happy to return to New Eltham!!
Agree with you, especially your comment on Maidstone ! I grew up just outside of this town in Allington during the 70's/80's. It was quite a nice place then. I moved away to Berkshire in the early 90's, but recently returned to Allington to care for my father. Maidstone is dreadful !! OMG !! Such a dump for a county town. Looks like not much has changed for the Medway towns though lol.
Brilliant video!
Just one error that I noticed - your crime rate and average house price shown for Gillingham, actually states 'Dartford'.
Just as an aside, I'm not surprised that many of the comments are pointing the demise upon one particular reason - what a surprise! The fact is, having worked across Kent for 25 years (it was the County I covered as a salesman), this decline has been ongoing for DECADES....not just the past couple of years.
I do wonder, how many people who moan about town centre shops closing, ever consider this fact when they are shopping online with Amazon, etc?
Great video - keep up the brilliant work mate.
I agree about the Amazon comment; but when everyone's broke what do you do? Buy wherever is cheapest. And if that's Amazon because Retail is too expensive, boom. High Street decimated
You need to do a Yorkshire Turdtowns and team up with Wandering Turnip who actually talks to the locals to get their views on where they live.
Honestly I want to but every time I try I realise im already behind schedule. It takes a very long time get around 8 towns. Winter filming hours are short too.
Chatham and Gillingham are not squeezed right up to the Thames .it is called the Medway towns because wait for it .....its around the river Medway!!! The clue is in the name.
In fifty years' time, after the apocalypse, when the world is a burning pit if radioactive waste, people will look back on these precious videos be shocked just how shit most of England was.
Thank you for your service, Margaret, John, Tony, Dave and all the fuckwits that followed them.
There won't be any people after the apocalypse, let alone with memories to look back. Heavens forbid I am from Kent originally and luckily met my French wife there and we came to lovely France 50 years ago to live. I have never been back. I don't miss that crappy depressing climate or the junk food.
You should really do a whole episode on Sheppey....Its a notoriously terrible island...It has improved slightly now there is a permanent bridge. Previously there was a draw bridge that if it was raised meant the local police couldn't get onto the island to help!!! Also a fun fact : Some Motgers Do Av Em was based on Sheppey with Frank as a typical local!!!😅😅😅😅
Michael Crawford is from Sheppey but that programme was based in Herne Bay
@@no_soy_rubio I'm sure some of it was filmed there!!
@@jamesbeeching6138 yeah the driving lesson one where he drove the car off the King's ferry Bridge was! 😆
@@retiredbore378lol! Milford Haven was not an upgrade.
@@retiredbore378 I think most people are not ready for radical change, and they thought they'd be less discriminated against in MH. people want to fit in and want to avoid their kids getting bullied at school. I kinda understand that transition.
During 9/11 someone in Chatham heard that The Pentagon had been attacked and hoped it was the shopping centre which had needed razing to the ground for years. Grew up around Medway, got the hell out 18 years ago for Australia where things are still trying to kill you but they generally aren't human. Solid list, particularly sad about the decline of Margate, loved visiting back when it was booming.
I was actually inside Chatham Pentagon and a workman had a transistor radio on announcing the Twin Tower being struck by a plane. Went home switched on TV just in time to see live Tower 2 struck. 2001.
@@johnsmith-ht3sy I was working in Tonbridge when it happened, watching the financial news feeds go nuts. Memorable day.
Maidstone, the county town, should be a bonus track on this list.
Outside of Maidstone on the outskirts that is where there is serious money (Kings Hill)
And it's going downhill fast. They keep renovating office blocks into flats which are bought up by. London councils who fill them up with feral gang members.... Which has pretty much been the story of. Kent for decades
RUBBISH. Maidstone is quite nice, got good shopping, nice big green open spaces (Mote Park), good restaurants (Gem of Kent is great), and you can reach most places within the county easily, like Tenterden, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford, Canterbury, even Chatham on this list here, which I think isn't really that bad. There are megabucks properties in King's Hill, not far away, a lot of American expats have houses there. Barming is also quite nice, just on the fringes of Maidstone. Crikey, if you really want to see one great big Turdtown, with lots of Turdboroughs, look no further than Greater London.......East Ham, Croydon, Hackney, Hornsey, Stratford, Brixton, the Isle of Dogs, and that's only to name the most obvious ones,
@@lesskeels3417agreed
Turdtowns, Wandering Turnip and Wendall - all highlighting the demise of our towns/cities
Give it 10 years, I don't see high streets existing.
Most of the North Kent coast is deeply depressing , hardly Darling buds of May Territory.
Trashed by heavy industry, now mostly gone.
I live in Kent and I've just watched your video and I have this to say - everything you say is absolutely correct! I've been to all those places and was only in Gillingham a few weeks ago! (car service) Everything you've shown is as I know it!
it sucks really how bad things are getting and a lot of the locals have just given up.
Brexit hasn't helped things either.
@@garyturner5739 Even without brexit things will likely have been worse anyway, Europe in itself is not doing very well currently, there's enough issues over there as well.
My sister went on an exchange trip to Germany with her school in the late 1970s. They went by ferry from Sheerness and I remember her saying it was a dump even then.
I once dated a girl from Orpington. I spent one Christmas with her parents, and was pleasantly suprised by how nice it was. She took me to Bluewater, which was a great shopping experience, although kind of stressful to drive to.
As others have said Bluewater is what killed several of the towns mentioned here.
True just like Video Killed The Radio Star..@@cad4246
Despite what many of the locals think, Orpington has not been in Kent since it was subsumed into Greater London in 1965.
@@GrahamMacdonald-w9o Within one aside of working in Orpington. I got the job in 1991/92 and as I was about to leave, having agreed terms,my prospective Boss told me that he was off to the Caribbean and being new to the Business,I changed my mind and the whole course of my life:)
I’m surprised only two of the Medway towns made the list.
Good to see you done a video in the south east.
Unlike the your previous videos you a highlighting an area of the country that has both a geographic and economic advantage. Yet still has some extremely dire and depressed towns
Well there'd be no room to talk about anywhere else if they talked about all of them
I’m amazed that my hometown, Sittingbourne, escaped the list. Just goes to show the level of competition for the top spot there is on this list 😂
The pikey capital of Kent1!
Excellent, I've visited or commuted through some of these place when working in the construction industry.
I got a little worried as the list went on, but you didn't disappoint, you put Sheerness on top spot.
It doesn't even have a direct rail service to London. Another area is the Isle Of Grain. I feel sorry for anyone who lives on that desolate and isolated spit of land.
" I feel sorry for anyone who lives on that desolate and isolated spit of land".
Made me laugh out loud:)
How come you missed out Trashford, sorry, Ashford?
Maybe Councils will realise one day (When it's too late) that out of town shopping centres kill the real town centres.
It happened at Trashford when they built "The Designer Outlet" and moved the Market too
Bluewater did it for Dartford, Gravesend, Chatham & Gillingham to a certain extent.
Westwood certainly messed up Ramsgate and Margate.
Dover?? We all know what's messed that place up.
Good video though.
Ashford must be number 9!
Councils and governments don't give a toss about the high streets dying
I love in Ashford. To be honest, it's not that bad. Good places to eat, and shop. Lots of places to work. Town centre is a bit pants though. Easy access to lovely countryside is a plus.
I agree with you on the countryside. The rest? Are you sure?
I moved here some 23 years ago, not really a choice as it was affordable. To be honest I still rather like it. Maybe it grows on you like mould. I also remember it from the early 80,s and the change for the better is simply amazing. It's still not Canterbury mind you!
I’m originally from Kent born in Gravesend lived there till I was 6 ,I loved it .the road I spent my childhood in ,i heard all the houses were knocked down as it was so rough , it now has all new houses in its place .when I was a teenager I moved to isle of Sheppey with my parents lived there till I was 19 , I remember the great fair in sheerness the arcades ,all gone now , the pubs were good fun in the evening too .
Sheppey school/Minster college was awful the teachers were terrible and felt I learnt nothing . We moved away in the late 90s to Cumbria , the town we moved to was awesome lots of night clubs and shops and close to the lakes too but has now gone right down hill ,hardly anything in the town ,loads of pubs and clubs and hotels gone just like most of the country’s towns , it’s a real shame what’s happening to these once great places
I had to stay in dartford for a week once in the 90's. I cant remember much from that decade, but how depressing dartford was is still very clear in my battered memory.
I have lived in Bexley, in this house, for 40 years and never stopped in Dartford and never had any inclination to look around. I passed through one or twice when The Dartford Tunnel approach roads were blocked. THat was fun..:)
I lived in London and moved to Dartford. It is a dump
When I first started driving I hated roundabouts too, but now I know how to drive I love how they keep traffic moving and reduce jams. Come back when you've been driving for a few years and you'll love Kent.
Edit: There's a lot of green space in Medway too. Plenty of parks and places where you can go from the town centre to wilderness in a matter of minutes like Cuxton and the Lines
Edit 2: Pocahontas there's a f**king monument at her grave it's by the river
For future visits, Essex would be worth a look. Some nice villages in the north of the county; Dedham, Langham, and Ardleigh, and Battlesbridge to name a few. In constant, you have awful towns like Southend, Basildon, Thurrock, and Colchester.
Not forgetting Jaywick 😮
My daughter lives in Wivenhoe in Essex, quite close to Colchester. I'm surprised that Colchester is an 'awful' town, as I am quite impressed with it whenever I go there with her and my grandson. There is a lot of history there, and not a lot of visible dereliction.
@@993RedvegTowns north of Brentwood and Chelmsford are better Havering and Thurrock are 💩 area's
I knew Sheerness would be #1! I used to travel through there regularly when there were ferries to Vlissingen (Olau Line, lovely ships). There was also the Sheerness Steelworks, gone now. Much later I discovered that my grandfather was born in Sheerness. His father had come down from the North East to work as shipwright in the Royal Dockyard, also now gone.
Gravesend: the only place in the world where you can look across the river to Tilbury and wish you were there instead.
Man, England is falling apart at the seams and councils think "ah just put a rainbow flag on it, job done". seeing rainbows juxtaposed against derelict town squares is just extra depressing
Well unless my eyesight is failing, I didn't see one 'rainbow flag' in any of these towns?
Would you care to point out where they were?
Moreover, I don't think I've noticed a rainbow flag in ANY of the Turd Towns covered in this entire series.....but hey, let's not let fact get in the way of your BS, rhetoric and agenda of hate! 😂
11:34 get down to specsavers mate, also drive around ol blighty more youll see rainbow flags absolutely everywhere. theres nothing hateful or political about pointing out rainbow flags are plastered about in depressing dumps you hypersensitive baby
@@BarryAllenMagic Are you possibly jumping the gun just a little? I read the OP's post as being an inditement of hollow virtue signalling and not tackling actual problems. Living in a crime-ridden, run-down dump with bad schools does not help minorities or vulnerable groups. Too often I see politicians talking the talking - but not walking the walk. We are meant to be mollified with flags and taking the knee etc. I don't think that seeing these gestures juxtaposed against broken towns and schools not fit for the purpose as 'extra depressing' can be fairly described as 'an agenda of hate'.
@BarryAllenMagic not to mention this is a tory area lmao, wonder why this country is going to hell. Oh I know! It's those immigrants and gays! Not the government over the past 13 years!
@@BarryAllenMagic Presumably they're referring to Margate, 11:30 or so in the video, where a building is covered in rainbow flags.
Does anybody know why people you don't want to look at are particularly attracted to town centres? Like people who drink Special Brew for breakfast or those who keep themselves on a never ending spice trip? They seem to be drawn into the town centre somehow and seem to show up in nearly all of these videos.
It's because that's where the dealers are too. Harder to get drugs in a suburban cul-de-sac. Easier in the Town centre. Really all there is to it. These drugged up zombies are not rocket scientists.
surprised strood didnt make the list. north kent in general is just a pretty grim place.
Shout out for the inclusion of Snodland where seeing the traffic lights change seems the main attraction..
As a kent resident I agree with most of this. I will just say that the listed building in Margate may be somewhat hideous, but it is somewhat cuclturally important as a remnant concrete architecture.
Also isle of sheppey, you missed leysdown. That is a place I will never forget!
Little did I realize 30 years ago that when my 70-year old Mum was unwell and I could, barely, move with Gout and our dog accompanied us to the local Pharmacist all clinging to each other and limping along, that was going to be the highlight of my week's holiday in Leysdown...
Another great video, I’ve lived in Kent for nearly 20 years and would have picked the same 8 but added Maidstone and Ashford as a pair of overrated junkie filled hell holes. Sheerness was the obvious number 1 it’s tragic.
The traffic in Kent is beyond ridiculous - it feels like you’re trapped by congestion and it’s 10 times worse since Brexit which was ironically and u fathomably supported in Kent - a county that relies on trade and travel with mainland Europe. 🤯
Your comment is ironic because when we joined The E E C in 1973 it was just a Trade deal with 6 affluent Countries. The E U with its 28 states became something completely different. If the Trade is much;less Post Brexit then how is the traffic 10 times worse?
@@Isleofskye do you live in Kent? Have you first hand experience of the traffic pre and post Brexit? Check the definition of irony too.
@@petewelsh9978 Well only in this house for 40 years. lol
To be fair, although my address is a Kent one,I am, literally,on the border of S E London and Kent in Bexley and my life means,I can, easily,avoid traffic as I have no need to go out during school runs or rush hours and know all the back streets as I am 69 years old.
I know it is deceptive but I got home from Millwall last night in 21 minutes once I reached my car.
It's even worse over the Dartford Crossing - Grays, Purfleet, Tilbury (where even the locals joke you need to wipe your feet on the way out).
Parts of the 'Garden of England' are beautiful. You visited the compost heap 🙂
Kent remains a beautiful, mainly rural county despite the pockets of urban dereliction, which is happening throughout the country, due to factors that have already been described.
as a Margate local and lover I implore you to come in the summer! yes there's some run down buildings and it's dominated by Londoners, but there's bars, art galleries, loads of activities and things to do, it's busy and full of life and it's a great time, I really like it here
What about Ashford ? What a dump. I moved away 20 years ago, came back recently and couldn't believe it. Nothing but expensive houses and a dead high st.
I live in Medway and I think you were very kind in your description of Chatham. Most people I know avoid the high street. It says a lot about society when you see these failing areas.
Margate has certainly changed for the worst since Del Boy and Rodney visited. 😓
😂😂😂
Thank you for the honest appraisal of my home county. It's a big old area and certainly one of haves and have-nots. Chatham could easily be a nice place but would need investment and a bit of vision. The seaside towns will always struggle with unemployment and drugs.
I was born in London, but my family moved to Dartford. Before I left home in 92, Dartford and Gravesend was buzzing. When I left school I worked in Army and Navy department store in Gravesend and used to party a lot there too!
Darford had Zens nightclub which would attract a few celebs. It was cool.
The once place I didn't like was Strood. That area was weird. Im surprised it didn't make the list.
The Isle of Sheppy was plain rachet. My mum almost bought a holiday home there! I'm glad that she didnt.
We stayed in a friends holiday home there. It was so sketchy!
It doesn't help that the councils don't really do much to invest in these areas. It's a shame, because they were really cool places to go back in ther heyday.
As a Kent native, I can agree the list was spot-on. Its hard to pick just 10 towns since Strood, Folkestone, Ashford could have made the list. So many traditional, historical towns have rotted away due to poverty, antisocial behaviour, non-assimilating immigration, overcrowding and so on. But Kent as a county still has a lot to offer - beaches, countryside, historical sites, shopping and close links to London making the county somewhere that, despite its problems, people will always want to live in.
Come back to Thanet in season and on a day it's not raining, I guarantee you will have a good time. Agree both towns High Streets need help but the people that know avoid the center of town as that's not where the fun is to be had.
Bit harsh on Margate & Ramsgate, I like them of course they aren´t going to look good on December days, where does?
Agree
commute commute...and when you finally manage to get home, you're in dartford. Classic.
Now you've down the North Coast, take a vist of the South Essex coast. You'll be amazed by Basildon, Canvey, Benfleet, Southend and Shoebury.
Ywa, but, at least, you have Purfleet and Grays....oh! I see what you mean:)
You need to do a video on London boroughs. I live in Lambeth, and it's a fecking shit hole. Okay, it's not as bad as some UK bomb sites, but when you consider what some sheeple earn, it's scary bleak.
I think East & West Sussex are prime candidates for an episode of TT. Brighton and Crawley are such wretched hovels that they warrant their own dedicated videos.
Brighton is lovely. Only places I can think of that'd make it are Hastings, Hailsham, Newhaven and Crawley. I can't comment on places like worthing as I've never been there though I agree crawley is an arse pit.
Hastings and Newhaven are definitely contenders, but I can’t agree with you about Brighton; it is one of the worst cities I can think of. On the other hand, I quite like Hove 🤷🏻♂️
Brighton is massively overrated.
@@SutekhTheDestroyer Hove is the tunbridge wells of sussex, no soul. Aside from the roads in centre being annoying and of course being worse than the almighty eastbourne Brighton is a great place especially compared to other cities of the same size
It seems from my travels 80% of the country falls within the range of turd town. Depressing.
I like the adage at the end of the Gravesend entry that there's a lot of history there and a good tidy up would really help the place. Gravesend is just like lots of places in the UK, suffering from an economic downturn, but of all the places on here I think it could have the most potential for an upswing when, or if, the country manages to get back on its feet.
Can’t believe Dover isn’t higher. It’s desperately in need of help. So many of these coastal towns have been forgotten. The irony that most vote for parties who will do them over every chance they get is vivid.
Dover is getting help most of the year, by dinghies. But no one is making a use of the gifts...
I think you should visit some more areas in the south to highlight the poverty there and continue to quash the rumours that it is paved with gold. Poverty can be even worse in some ways due to the higher cost of living. You should go to Hertfordshire. The house prices and cost of living are insane, but there is so much poverty as well as turdtowns, particularly areas like Waltham Cross, Cheshunt, Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City and Watford.
Liked the part about Sheerness. I bought a house in Queenborough , (a little more inland on the Isle of Sheppey), for 45k in 1999. Sold it in 2002 for 85k. Had I hung on for another 18 months it would have been worth around 125k, (after they built the new bridge)!
Can’t complain though. The buyer was a hard working guy with a young family and I’m sure he’d do well when he sold it.
Kent resident here - surprised Gravesend wasn't placed higher, considering the absolute state it is in. And yeah, the one way system is really annoying - driving there is an absolute nightmare if it's your first time.
Sheerness really does take an extra flush!
Please come Hampshire and see our beautiful towns (Aldershot, Andover, Basingstoke, Farnborough, Portsmouth, Southampton and Waterlooville
When you mentioned the ' bad neighbourhood ' in Chatham and panned to Luton Arches 😅 I live two minutes away
Can't believe you haven't done Hertfordshire yet. Its close to london with plenty of turdtowns and relatively small compared to most counties so easy to get around. I know Hertfordshire really well. More than happy to help.
Stevenage.
@@lonalxaiahemel Hempstead
@@lonalxaia Waltham cross.
Yes, good idea to do Hertfordshire, it's too often only thought of as a prosperous county. Also Buckinghamshire and Surrey would be good for same reasons.
I was born in Kent and lived there until I was 25. Then I left the country and haven't looked back since. Seeing this video only reaffirms my life choices. Kent does have some lovely towns and villages, if you have the money to live there though......
Great video!
I live in Sevenoaks- it's like a safe bubble. And being LGBT, I feel confident and safe in the town- I'm very lucky.
Most who grow up locally have to move out of the area, as the average house price is £773,000 odd. Madness! 3 bed semi ex council houses go for £650-695k... fast trains to london (London Bridge in 20-25ish mins, Charing Cross about 35ish mins). Lots of keyless Range Rovers and BMWs been stolen recently- I know of at least 6 in 10 days. And mega shoplifting problems- people come from outside areas and plunder what they can (I lived in the town centre opposite a suprrmarket and saw many shoplifters every single day)
Dartford traffic... I know about that! Someone sneezes and the M25 ia solid, with Bexleyheath and Dartford like a car park.
Amd the thing I like about Chatham- a lot of C.A.T.S. Eyes (Jill Gascoigne) was filmed at the dockyards lol.
Sheerness is a very strange place...feels like you've gone back 30 years but not in a good way! But I know people who lived there and were very happy there.
Cheers for the upload, enjoyed it.
I worked in Sevenoaks in the 1980s and it was a rare day when you didn't see a Rolls-Royce there. As you write, Patsy, the house prices are eye-watering. They were steep forty years ago and, when I looked in the estate agents windows there last September, the situation has become even more barmy.
It's a shame Margate made this list, it used to be such a nice place, I'm going back to the late 70's in to the 80's and 90's. Along the seafront there was loads of amusement arcades, there was a pier that had either a penny arcade or half penny arcade, can't remember which, long time ago. There was also a little shopping arcade which had a tattoo parlour and a popular joke shop, that had everything and it was always packed with customers. In the summer months train loads of families would arrive from London, trying to find a spot on the beach was hard. Then there was Dreamland, what an amusement park that was, awesome place. Radio 1 used to do a roadshow in the summer, every week they would broadcast from a different place and Margate was 1 of those places. In '96 me and my wife couldn't afford a proper honeymoon so we had a day trip to Margate, was a great day. Can't forget Only Fools and Horses Jolly Boys Outing to Margate. The place is hardly recognizable now to what it was back then.
I was born and grew up in Gillingham. Back in the sixties and seventies, there was nothing wrong with the place. Full of history, a nice park, sports centre, riverside walks, proper shops, the lot.
Revisited for the first time since 1988 in 2010, and was astonished to find that you could barely get into any of the remaining "proper" shops because the high street was utterly clogged with street trader market stalls, selling tat of various sorts. You could barely see the real shops behind the stalls. It looked like market day in the Punjab.
Everything about the place was cheap, tawdry, run-down and depressing.
It was a great disappointment, and I felt it deserved a higher placement on your list!
Thanks for taking my suggestion of doing Kent! Luckily, I live in Canterbury, which is one of the few non-turd towns/cities in Kent. The county is a scummy place, overall.
I completely agree with this, I'm from Dartford and used to live near the bridge, it took my dad over 2 hours to drive home from work and he worked less than 2 miles away. Dartford traffic doesn't just affect Dartford, it affects South East London, Essex & Kent as all connecting motorways gets jammed. Clubbing in Dartford is s**t too (worse than Chatham on that front)😂😂
I live near there too and know what you mean alas?! Particularly around 5pm on a Friday up the top of Princes Road so too?? I don't go there now-best to avoid it too if you can?!
@@BruceDanton-br9bw Yeah it's a nightmare, I normally head down backroads to avoid it through Brent Lane, Pilgrim's way and that near the M25 roundabout
Your dad would have got home quicker if he'd walked 🙄
@@MargaretUK Yeah 😂😂 he had to abandon his car in the traffic occasionally
Yes that is what I have done before too-along Darenth Road by the health club too? Still a nightmare though alas too?!@@will_n775
"What are you? Some sort of Kent"
Says it all
Thanks buddy, still not dome Cleveland though ;-)
I've lived in Medway all my life, and a lot of my childhood memories are from Gills and Chatham. It's a pretty rough place, I've walked past people passed out in the highstreets a lot. Chatham 'spoons is pretty decent, though.
I live in Rochester and since Chatham and Gills have no nightlife, all the people there come here and the weekends are a nightmare
Buckinghamshire?
Come to High Wycombe!
A few years back i was quite disturbed to find kent has about 40 unsolved murders which is a staggering amount of cold cases compared to any other county. Some of the cases i read about in Ashford and other towns were really quite creepy
If you want to know how we cope with the traffic in Dirtford, we don't. Especially in October-December where the commuter traffic and the Bluewater shopping mall traffic get in each other's way. I used to work out near Bluewater in Crossways Business Park and from October to December it was often just leave my car at work and walk home along the bus route, hoping a bus would eventually escape the gridlock enough to get into the bus lane. It's why Dartford has so many takeaways, you can;t get to the shops so pay someone on an e-bike to do it for you. I'd say the way around the traffic was to buy a motorbike but I gave up on that after having 3 nicked in 4 years and my insurance going through the roof. Up until recently Dirtford was still a town with big local employers like Glaxo and Barclays Bank but after Barclays moved their call centre offshore and the Glaxo site got a load of new build housing slapped over it Dirtford morphed into a commuter town. We were supposed to get crossrail but they stopped it at Scabbey Wood instead so even the commuters have it shit, crawling through the sidings at 5mph until they can change to the Lizzy line or the DLR.
Random observation - Ramsgate and Margate also exist as settlements on the South Coast of South Africa - I have found memories of them from the 1970s.
I visited Ramsgate a few weeks ago and came to the same conclusion - nice seafront, shame about the town centre. Whitstable has one of the dreariest seafronts I've ever seen. Herne Bay is quite nice to spend a couple of hours in though. If you visit Essex you'll need to do a two-parter.
I live in one of the featured places and I love it, Poverty and bad planning doesn't look good anywhere. My town has and has always had it's problems it also has and has always had a good strong community of people who care and look out for each other scruffy or not.
The "view" at 14:44 was that which I saw from the room where I was born, although I remember the 'Family Amusements' building as 'Harry's Bingo'. I was told that Sheerness was known as 'Sheernasty' in the Royal Navy, so the decline which started when the dockyard closed in 1960 started from quite a low point. I visited this year for the first time in a long time, and the best that can be said is that it was not as bad as I was expecting. On the bright side, Sheppey United did reach the first round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history this season, so it's not all doom and gloom on the Island. They did get stuffed though.
I have been to all eight of the selected towns in this video in the last 18 months and detect a common thread. You concentrated on the town centres which, in Kent as elsewhere in the UK and further afield, have been deserted by a large proportion of the population, especially those with cars. As was mentioned, in all fairness, Gillingham's High Street is rather depressing but there is a decent out-of-town shopping centre at Hempstead Valley. On another point, Ramsgate has got quite a lot of decent architecture - much designed by Auguste Pugin or one of his family - and the seafront from the marina to the old railway tunnel is pretty smart. Chatham has got swathes of leafy streets as you head uphill from the Medway towards the M2 motorway. However, I can't argue with Sheerness being top (or bottom?) of the pile and I agree with the comments about Gravesend and Dartford.
I've been up and down the country now. It's the same everywhere. Depends on who you knew and why you visited as to what impression you're left with.
Very very lazy post. I live in Ramsgate and it's fantastic. Like a lot of towns the high street is tired. What's wrong with art shops? It has a beach somewhere? Couldn't be arsed to even walk down there. It has a beautiful sandy beach which stretches for miles. Go a little bit off the town and there are beautiful regency squares. There are also great parks. The nightlife and sense of community are second to none. Think again. I'd like to ask one question. What makes you an expert? In future before you totally diss a town take a little bit more time to look round properly.
Couldn't agree more. On a lovely summer's day, it would be hard to beat Ramsgate. Great walks, amazing sunsets and a Wetherspoons (don't laugh!) with the most beautiful far-sweeping views across the sea. On a clear day, you can see the white cliffs of France. Also, we have the most varied architecture anywhere outside of Bath, tons of amazing history, fresh sea air and to cap it all you can be out in the countryside in two shakes of a lambs tail. Is it perfect? Of course not. The advent of Westwood X shopping centre put paid to the high streets of the three Thanet towns but, like the phoenix, Ramsgate is rising again, slowly but surely. Anywhere in the UK is dismal and depressing when seen through the lens of a filthy, grey, rainy day. I know many people who have moved from all over the country to Ramser and they all seem to like it just fine. Also, there is nothing more enchanting than dining out by the side of the beautiful harbour, the only Royal harbour in the UK. We are blessed with a huge variety of good restaurants and no visit to Ramsgate would be complete without a stroll to Pegwell and a stop-off in one of the pretty pubs there.
Margate was still a shining jewel in the 1970s, full of laughter and happiness, but you just summed it right up 👍
Ramsgate has the largest Wetherspoons in all of the uk. Its the royal Victoria plaza thing that was photographed when you mentioned Ramsgate
Hi from Ireland.. We visited the Kent area in summer 2022 on our way back from France. I also presumed this would be an affluent, manicured and well cared for neck of the woods with what I imagined would be a respectable, well off, population in close proximity to London and it's financial might.. But God what a let down. The whole county is a mess. The litter is shocking and isn't far off something youd see in Pakistan or some other disfunctional shithole.. We often visit the UK and I can say over the past twenty odd years there has been a definite decline in your heritage, culture, population etc... How did it all go so wrong so fast?..
Multiculturalism.
You're guna get that with so many lefty uk haters living here . Attacking our past n continually saying the English are all racists n saying our flag is racist , all of this promoted by lefty socialist councils .they can't even clear litter up ! It's everywhere n shameful 🤨😖
14 years of looting by Conservative government.
I grew up in Chatham and all my family are from Gillingham. As others have said, both towns were really heavily hit by the closure of the dockyard. So many of my ancestors worked there -- it was the main source of decent jobs for working class men for literally hundreds of years. Now that it's closed, what's left? Nearly everyone I went to school with left Medway for London because there are so few good jobs in Medway. Every time I visit, the towns seem more and more run down.
Love that you noted the location of the Gills, as I don't think that's recognised enough. I'm very wary of the club's desire to relocate to a more rural setting. It's the beating heart of Gillingham and I'd hate to see it moved.
the decline decay poverty is more worse than anyone can imagine in uk yet the councils like to sweep them under the rug we need to know recognising the area is bad or in decline is the first step to improving somewhere and not blindingly defending it like some like to do
It’s a managed decline…..
Eventually the developers will swoop in and ( with the backhander to the councils) make a fortune turning all the shit into luxury apartments.
This trend is happening all over the UK.
@monk3yboy69 for sure it's happening in City centres massive forced migration now it's happening in Council estates