Top 10 Worst Places to Live In Yorkshire, England
Yorkshire is by far the most beautiful and biggest county in the whole of the U.K. With many famous landmarks, castles, treks, and vast green land, it's hard to believe that it's also home to some of the roughest places that time seems to have forgotten.Much of this is due to the collapse of the mining and steel industries. Sometimes, it's just a 10-minute drive from the motorways to end up in ghost towns.
With over 40 years of experience moving around, here are my choices.
Massive problem with social housing and illegal immigrants. Another of the larger cities widely acknowledged as the curry capital of England, but that's where the fun stops. More fast food shops closed down per pound than in any other city.
I live in Bradford. It's the scruffiest place ever, and so dodgy. However, only the center of Bradford is like this. I live in a nice part of it in the Yorkshire Dales called Bingley.
Castleford is nothing like it was twenty years ago. The chemical works have gone. It has a popular little shopping centre, Junction 32, with its designer outlets, the brilliant Xscape, and lots of new housing developments shooting up all over.
So, it's about time people stopped criticizing it based on an outdated reputation from many years ago.
It's a small town in the much more glamorous Wakefield. The townsfolk are very dedicated to their hometown but seem stuck in the 1940s and haven't progressed.
Many buildings are boarded up, and the crime level is high. There's also a bad smell of sulfur due to factories in and around the town center.
I've been here for over 25 years now - just a bit more than half of my life - and I totally disagree. In fact, I think it's probably the best city in the UK. It even makes my Top 10 list of the best cities in Europe and has a spot somewhere in my Top 50 of the best cities in the world. Some of the cities before Leeds are Florence, Amsterdam, Havana, Munich, and Prague, but only as a visitor, not to live there permanently.
It's the crime capital of Yorkshire and one of the U.K.'s worst drug areas. The city is notorious for prostitution and drug dealing at the bus station, and the police have issues patrolling one of the biggest cities in England.
High unemployment.
Rotherham has had a significant amount of bad press in recent years. However, it is not such a bad town. True, the town centre is a little run-down, but there are some quite nice people of varying ethnic backgrounds, and the problems with drug abuse and prostitution are being addressed.
There used to be a quite nice cinema called the Regal, which ended up renamed as the Scala. It had a pretty nice Conacher pipe organ. I think the organ has been preserved somewhere, but the cinema is no more.
The grooming and abuse of young girls continue, courtesy of the Labour-run Rotherham Council.
Hull is a place of mixed fortunes. There are some very attractive buildings, both old and new, along with fine pubs and restaurants, theatres, libraries, and museums. An attractive shopping complex built over the old docks is well worth mentioning. It is a port where millionaires keep their yachts, but also, rather sadly, a town that struggles with unemployment and drug dependency.
I suspect it is this diversity that makes the place so fascinating. There are some interesting street names - Dagger Lane, to name but one.
Doncaster is full of crackheads and dope addicts. There ain't no place like Donny - scum.
Barnsley is twinned with Bradford. Both are socially and economically deprived and run by the Local Labour Party Council.
It's a total eyesore of a place, and the town centre is a complete joke. The best thing about the place is the road leading out of it.
Downtrodden pit town, see above.
If you weren't born with a plum in your mouth or a silver spoon up your bottom, then this city is not for you. It's next to some idyllic surroundings, but housing is way overpriced. If you drive anything less than a BMW, you'll be snubbed. It's full of middle-class Downton Abbey wannabes, but without the real cash to back it up.
I've never felt so lonely living somewhere.
A little pit village where the residents are so violent that they will beat you for stopping at a red light. Like Castleford, it finds itself as a tiny suburb of Wakefield, but these residents take it one step further. If you shop or work in the city of Wakefield, where the named stores are, you are shunned.
The village was hit by pit closures in the '80s and '90s, and it still has high unemployment and a high number of people claiming to be disabled.
If you don't come from the village, what are you doing here? This is usually followed by a punch in the face. It's a charming little destination that isn't on anyone's map.
I once went to Knottingley and shopped at Morrison's. I had the occasion to visit the toilets and complained to the manager about the cleanliness and the amount of rubbish and food wrappings in the car park. He just said, "Well, it is Knottingley!"
I occasionally used to swim at the sports centre, but the ladies' changing area was unfit for humans to use. I complained about various things like the unwashed, grey-stained floors, the cracked toilet bowls, and the lack of proper sanitary disposal facilities. A few weeks later, it was closed down. People were throwing bricks through the windows, and then it was demolished.
I occasionally visited the library, but I was told that it was impossible for the service to continue due to people not returning books and drinking alcohol on the premises. It was demolished, and a cheap supermarket now stands on the site.
I think Knottingley should be avoided and left to the inbreds who are happy to wallow in their own excrement.
The Newcomers
Another crime-infested, deprived slum ruined by the Labour-run Sheffield Council.
Sheffield is beautiful. It's very close to the Peak District, Pennines, and Hillsborough.
Not a day goes by without criminals and arguments. But the scenery in the Peak District and Derwent Hills is nice. I'm a kid, by the way, and I live here.
Huddersfield is a hole full of immigrants, chavs, and dicks. It's crime-ridden, lifeless, and bleak.
Stabbersfield is a pound shop heaven where the Sports Direct uniformed natives ask how much everything costs in there. If you visit from anywhere civilized in the UK, be sure to wear chainmail, or risk not getting back home.
It's a mixture of Castleford and Featherstone people who marry and live in social housing. It's a lot better than Featherstone, but some areas, like Ferry Fryston, have a huge power plant that really poses a threat to health.
A town with connections to some very notable people. Betty Boothroyd, Eddie Waring, and cross-channel swimmer Eileen Fenton were all born in Dewsbury. Wallace Hartley, the violinist who died on the Titanic, although originally from Lancashire, had his home in the town.
In more recent times, the Matthews family rose to infamy due to their foiled attempts at extortion by kidnapping their own daughter, Shannon. The town has a long-standing association with Rugby League and, in days gone by, was a significant producer of Mungo and Shoddy, as well as fine wools and blankets.
Dewsbury once had a fine theatre called the Empire, several cinemas, two railway stations, and a famous ice cream parlour. It now has many Pakistani taxi firms.
York is lovely and welcoming, though it feels a bit weary with everything that is happening. Generally, people are of the opinion that "not all appear as they seem." It has a lot of tourists from all different backgrounds, similar to Harrogate. Both are historical places. Anyone who doesn't like Yorkshire has alternate motives. Leeds is a lot like London.
York is an all-around decent, fast-growing city. Like any other urban area, it has crime and fairly dangerous areas, but nothing on the scale of Leeds, Bradford, or Hull. There are only a handful of areas where it's not safe to walk at night.
I hate the place. Couldn't wait to leave.
I've never been attacked in Batley, ever. Maybe the writer of the last post is a scroat.
Absolute tip. Cannot wait to leave.
Worst roads, worst transport, boring as hell, and it always seems to rain here.