| Archive for Our Scotland - www.our-scotland.org Scottish Politics Discussion Forum / Messageboard - Dedicated to online discussion about Scottish Politics and an Independent Scotland, as well as Scottish Society today. We also have a section dedicated to Banter, Sport and Recommended Sites. |
| jamesieboy |
Scotland's worst place. Where is it?THe plook on the plinth nominated Cumbarnauld, mainly because of its dreadful town centre.However, I think there are other more appropriate places. Scotland's worst village? Scotland's worst city? Scotland's worst street? Most crime-ridden area? |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
The border with England. If you're in Scotland of course. It happens to be the loveliest place in England. | ||||||
| jamesieboy |
Well, Northumberland gets my vote for the loveliest place in England. | ||||||
| Lord Pitsligo |
Well, it is close to Scotland. |
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| Alasdair |
No, cumbernauld is very deserving, although I believe it was elsewhere that got the award this year, Cumnock was it? That's a hole if ever there was one. | ||||||
| azzuri |
Cumbernauld also gets my vote. I was there for 2 hours on a work-related thing a year ago and felt seriously depressed after the experience. | ||||||
| Lord Pitsligo |
I lived in Southampton for a year. Cumbernauld is a paradise by comparison 
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| Alasdair |
I was house hunting a few years ago and had a look at cumbernauld, the only place with many bedroomed houses at reasonable prices ... reasonable if you want to live in a shoe box with weird and unfortunate window arrangements surrounded by barbed wire 
One property I saw looked like a public toilet!! |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
I would double check that it wasn't a public toilet, but as its Cumbernauld I think we can assume they have no such luxury... |
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| agentmancuso |
It was New Cumnock; a place where they only aspire to the grandeur of Cumnock. But I think giving the title to New Cumnock was unfair. It's supposed to be awarded to highlight the ugliness of urban architecture, or the vicious stupidity of town planners. New Cumnock is just poverty stricken, which isn't the same thing at all. |
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| jamesieboy |
New Cumnock is, indeed, a serious dump. You can always listen to, and indeed sing along to, the orange marches as they proudly plough their way along the Main St.
Sure it's old and it's not beautiful And its colours they're urine |
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| Rinty |
I will be in New Cumnock later this morning. Mancusco is right, New Cumnock is just a typical fomer industrial viallge re-adjusting to the chnages it has faced. Council houses are being demolished, population is falling, but its not the urban planning disaster that this award was supposed to be.
As far as planning goes NC is pretty OK. The houses that are now being demolished took people from cramped miners rows into heated houses with toilets etc. They are pretty good solid council stock and its just that no-one wants them now. When they were busy the planning was fine. The main street is old (New Cumnock is actually older then Cumnock) but the planners back in the day did a good job, they couldnt have foreseen mill pits and factories closing a century later. But actually i dont think New Cumnock DID win it. "New Cumnock is, indeed, a serious dump. You can always listen to, and indeed sing along to, the orange marches as they proudly plough their way along the Main St." There isnt a street called 'Main St' and orange walks are few and far between. there is stil an orange club and this is largely because there was a significant number of people came there from protestant communities in NI. I dont even think the local LOL functions and orangemen that I know from NC tend to be in one Cumnock lodges. Over the years the walks are probably now the 'property' of others but New Cumnock didnt just become an 'orange town' by accident or out of a collective stupidity or bigotry. |
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| jamesieboy |
Points taken.
Wasn't the music composer, James McMillan, brought up in the New Cumnock area, along with some prominent footballers? McMillan has had plenty to say about the subject of bigotry and sectarianism in the past where I understand he had a hard time in his early days. Some would say his rantings and ravings have been 'inverted bigotry'. |
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| Aventinian |
How about Linwood in Renfrewshire?
There was a town I went through once somewhere north of Dundee that was absolutely terrible, but I can't for the life of me recall what it was called. Cumbernauld is a deserving winner though. |
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| Dave Coull |
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| Lord Pitsligo |
The biggest problem with Cumbernauld is that the whole damn place is made of concrete.
And concrete doesn't burn. |
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| Rinty |
I dont think Jimmy MacMillan is an 'inverted bigot' It's a bit much to say that, as he hasnt called for what he opposes to be 'inverted' just spoke out about his views on things, usually accompanied by a media reaction that hasnt read his opinion.
But he is from Cumnock, not New Cumnock. There are many footballers from Cumnock but cant think of any 'prominent' footballers from New Cumnock apart from Billy Dodds. |
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| Stevie |
CUMBERNAULD : a concrete bungle. It seriously sucks but has anyone visited the Raploch in Stirling... ? | ||||||
| agentmancuso |
Yes. There's some bits up the hill behind Greenock that are worse than that though. |
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| Alasdair |
Ah yes, Greenock. I spent some time in Paisley working for a careers advice service ... anyway the advisors had to do workshop in the job centres and Greenock was a definite safety in nymbers event and was usually identified as 'deepest darkest'. |
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| jamesieboy |
The area of Greenock that is being referred to is the Strone.
It is a truly awful place and is one of the worst sink estates in Scotland. |
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| twistedandbent |
there are parts of eyemouth needing swept out to see in a fishing tragedy.
garngad needs bombed. irvine needs bombed as well. |
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| agentmancuso |
A noble undertaking. Or maybe just pissing in the wind. |
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| Corby Boy |
Larkhall is p*sh, Blackwood in West Lothian and Shotts are not too clever either.
May be there is a correlation, ugly Loyalism = ugly town? East Kilbride not the greatest, I think they had the same town planners as Corby, which ranks alongside Milton Keynes and Stevenage as one of the ugliest towns south of the border. It is only the colurful aspects of the local population that give Corby any character. 
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| agentmancuso |
Isn't it Blackwood that has signs saying 'A Handgun Free Village' below the 30mph sign?
Poverty being a key ingredient of both.
Very dull, I'd agree, but not much that's actually dilapidated. |
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| jamesieboy |
East Kilbride is okay, It may not be baroque in its architecture (or even fake Georgian - like much of suburban England) but I'm just back from there tonight, and at least there's a bit of life in the town.
There are plenty of young people, a decent amount of jobs and a positive, go-ahead attitude. It did receive government aid for many years, right enough. And the schools are quite good. |
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| Tamed by a Scotsman |
I work in Stirling. There's been a lot of regeneration going on in Raploch. A few months ago I saw a documentary about a programme of education in classical music that was proving remarkably successful in Venezuela. They ended the documentary by talking about how other countries were looking to do the same thing themselves. They focused on a couple of Scots who had travelled over there and had decided to introduce it to Raploch. http://www.localpeopleleading.co....t.php?articleid=6718&typeid=1 My vote definitely goes to Rigside though. It's the kind of town where you lock your car doors, hold your breath and put the pedal to the metal. |
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| jamesieboy |
My wife and I visited Rigside once. It was a strange wee place with strange wee people.
In fact it was more of a scheme surrounded by lovely countryside but remote (Lanark was about 17 miles away) I went bacause I once read an article about a couple who were quite ordinary except for their extreme obesity, who were hounded out simply because they didn't come from the place and the guy had a slight English accent. Muirkirk was similar with people staring at you because you were a stranger. Like a scene from a Clint Eastwood film. |
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| Rinty |
muirkirk is an excellent wee village. the community spirit is good and they work well.
It has its rough stuff like all isolated villages, so to an outsider it might seem scary, but I like it. I am involved in an annual community event where my role is bringing speakers and poets together for a night. The weekend has other events too, Lapraik Speaking Festival 5/6/7 June 2009 St Thomas Hall Muirkirk. Riggside's club used to mental but its a pretty quiet village now. I have a few good Solidarity comrades in those villages. |
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| jamesieboy |
And I forgot to mention Shotts.
It is pretty awful, with the prison and the coal bing dominating the landscape. And the obligatory orange hall. Oh and Plains. Grimmer than grim. |
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| agentmancuso |
It will get even worse when Labour shut the post office. |
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| jamesieboy |
And the local cooncillor's a bit of a loudmouthed moron.
Used to work in edumacashun, so he did. |
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| Aventinian |
Nothing like sectarian jibes to mock the socially excluded, eh? |
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| Rinty |
I've never heard of Blackwood, are you sure you are not referring to Blackburn?
Ive seen and lived in worse places than Larkhall. Its went downhill since industry shut down but its not a bad wee town. I think it depends what you are used to, I dont get stared at in Muirkirk and dont find Larkhall ugly, just a bit run down. |
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| linoleum |
muirkirk.did they not try and build a private road out of there, got lost,met at the start again and called it a racetrack? | ||||||
| Stevie |
Lino, drole. | ||||||
| Rinty |
http://www.eastayrshirecc.co.uk/ | ||||||
| agentmancuso |
It was Blackridge I was thinking of. |
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| Corby Boy |
Blackridge - you're right. A dump. | ||||||
| wisnaeme |
Aye, it will. It used to be a busy wee place, Plains. What with the banana factory and the Bond at Moffat Mills no far away. It's got more than it's fair share of heid cases though in the scheme up the back of Main St. Mind you, there's Airdrie just down the road ...and schemes like Craigneuk, Petersburn, Whinhall, Thrashbush an that. Take yer pick, You'll not be stuck for choice of cowps there. ...and while ah'm on the subject, maybe ah should mention Gartlea. Years ago, I used to have a distant relative in Craigneuk, Still got some there and in Plains, by the way. Anyway, this fella Dunkie Donaldson used to be wild with the drink, VP or the Eldorado electric soup and used to batter his wee wife something terrible. The polis were always at his door. Then one day when he was blootered, he fell doon the stairs, conked himself oot and woke up with the sair heid and the religion. He was always up at the top cross or down the bottom of South Bridge St, preaching the gospel and singing the hymns something fierce, there after. Poor wee wifie wisnae sure whit to make of himself being 'saved'. Dull it was, if only ma man would batter me now and again for the excitement says she. Aye, plenty of heid cases and cowps then and now, thereabouts. What with the cowboys and indians, the smarties, needle farms and the buckie. A fifty year plus experiment by the Lavatory party was a social and environmental success, shurely. . |
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| Stevie |
This thread just keeps growing and growing.
Maybe the question should be, 'What's the nicest place in Scotland?' before there's nothing left. However, can I suggest the worst place in Scotland is Glasgow. Billy Connolly said, "The great thing about Glasgow is that it'll look the same after a nuclear war as it did before". I await the tedious defense of Scotland's largest industrial estate presently. 'Glasgow smiles better', the dire pun we all suffered during the 80s. How about this saying which I think is closer to the Neapolitan spirit of Europe. 'See Glasgow and die'. |
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| Stevie |
Och, no Glaswegians willing to defend the urban sprawl of nightmares.
Truthfully, I can't blame you. Still, maybe there's one amongst you willing to fight the good fight for Glasgow. There must be something good about it (other than the shops). |
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| Stevie |
Still no defenders of Glachu?
Well, it's settled then, Glasgow is the worst place in Scotland. |
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| Dave Coull |
Dear auld Glesga toon,
Glesga oan the Clyde There’s no’ anither place like Glesga In a’ the world sae wide! So be ye rich or be ye poor Or be ye up or doon Ye’ll always find a welcome In dear auld Glesga toon! |
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| mairead |
In my opinion, Glasgow is the best city in Scotland. If folk took time to stroll around it and look at some of the magnificent architecture of a bygone era they would get their eyes opened.
Personally, I can't stand Edinburgh. |
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| Cymro |
I much prefer Glasgow to Edinburgh that's for sure. | ||||||
| Luke P |
Glasgow's a great place. Except for that ruddy great motorway going through it. It's got a lot more civic pride and planning about it than English industrial towns. (an it has the subway too) | ||||||
| azzuri |
How often does it need to be said?!
What's it called?; CUMBERNAULD A truly dreadful place, try spending an afternoon there then tell me Glasgow is Scotland's worst place. |
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| Luke P |
It's like Buck Rogers in the 19th century... |
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| mairead |
The original concrete jungle by the looks of that piccie. | ||||||