Sussex towns take a pasting

The book claims to name and shame the "worst" places to live in the UK - and Sussex features prominently.

It seems the most scathing, bile-filled criticisms come not from ignorant outsiders but from people who have been living here for years.

Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live In The UK is due out on October 3 and has been compiled from contributions to the web site of underground magazine The Idler.

According to them, Brighton is "an ordinary, grimy South-East town", Hastings is "bleak, bleak, bleak" and Bognor "stinks of chip fat".

Horsham is a "no fun zone", Peacehaven is "tedious" while Burgess Hill is "the epicentre of all that is bad about Britain".

Crawley and Bexhill also come in for streams of abuse, with the book's authors claiming they only want to bring down to size the most pompous, pretentious places.

Unrepentant Dan Kieran, managing editor of the magazine, insisted the criticisms were worthwhile and said he was looking forward to being pelted with eggs by angry Sussex lovers.

He may have to get used to that kind of reception after his book's contents prompted an angry backlash from community leaders determined to sing their towns' praises.

Brighton and Hove City Council leader Ken Bodfish said the "crap" label would be better suited to the book's authors.

Mr Kieran, 27, insisted there was a spirit of fair play behind the survey and the book, despite being "totally subjective".

He said: "We took into account the towns nominated the most and the funniest observations about those towns.

"The thing to bear in mind is that it's not us saying it about these towns. The people who nominated these places either live there or have lived there.

"A lot of people are served very badly by these towns. If you just start slagging off towns which are poverty-stricken, that's just bullying. You have to choose places that think they are quite something."

He and his colleagues are due to start work on a follow-up book in June and intend paying a few visits to Sussex as part of the research.

He said: "We'd love to be egged by the locals."

If you have pride in your home town, you might like to start stocking up now.

And here's why ...

The entry for BRIGHTON reads: "Brighton seems to labour under the misapprehension that it is Barcelona, a collective illusion reinforced by the constant crowing from the council about being a beautiful 'city by the sea'.

"Half of it is dirty, noisy and packed to the gunwhales with self-important, superficial nasty young fashion victims with walkie-talkies with 'ironic' ringtones.

"The other half is an ordinary, grimy South-East town with council estates and young mums with love bites and screaming kids and cod-eyed young men drenched in aftershave and cheap gold."

Contributor Finlay Coutts-Britton writes: "Go to Brighton - have a laugh by all means. But it isn't the Mecca of English cool."

Councillor Bodfish hit back, saying: "We know that people love to live here, love to visit here and love to work here. The evidence is in our streets and shops every weekend.

"'Crap' is the authors, to be honest. The Idler can idle away as far as I'm concerned.

In the interests of fair play, The Idler offers its internet readers the chance to defend a town but Brighton is the only Sussex location where anyone has yet put the opposing case.

Stephen Holmes has a simple answer for the critics: "If you don't like a young vibrant place with lots to do in terms of pubs, clubs, art, sailing, with rock-climbing nearby ... don't go."

No such defence has been offered by loyalists in other Sussex towns which have been targeted, with BOGNOR suffering particular scorn.

Contributor Peter McCrum asks: "What is it about these Victorian seaside towns that is so utterly vulgar and depressing?

"Bognor is just representative of all these generic seaside towns that drape themselves along our coastline, like over-made-up, knackered old tarts soliciting for trade.

"In the summer the place stinks of chip fat. In winter it's almost deserted and smells of death.

"After Ford XRis, the most common car seen about town is the hearse.

"Don't even bother looking for something to eat in Bognor that hasn't been battered and deep-fried.

"Turn your back to the sea and head north, to the South Downs and places like Arundel and Amberley where you can get a proper pint and decent pub food beneath ancient castles."

Unimpressed Bognor mayor Jan Cosgrove said: "The Idler - an apt name for any so-called journal so gratuitously offensive and not even vaguely funny. All the dated, old clichs are there.

"As for Bognor being a 'knackered old tart', there are some who give far less value for money. The only thing that is cheap and vulgar in all this is The Idler.

"This is the sunniest resort in Britain with a gentle climate. That's why people want to live here.

BURGESS HILL contributor Simon Duck writes: "It's pointless even having the 'defend Burgess Hill' option available.

"No one who has ever been could raise even the slightest doubt that Burgess Hill is the epicentre of all that is bad about Britain."

Richard Cutler adds: "The town is now threatening to swallow up all the surrounding villages, villages which have rich histories and which have for years slept soundly in the knowledge they are separate entities."

Australian-born Graheme Nevill, landlord of the King's Head in London Road, Burgess Hill, has found a different picture since moving to the area six weeks ago.

He said: "Burgess Hill is not a bad joint at all. We get a superb atmosphere in here and everyone seems very friendly. We never have any problems.

"Maybe the people writing the book are basing their information on the past, maybe 20 years back. I expect they'll get a lot of flak."

Burgess Hill councillor Anne Jones said: "This sounds like someone who lived in Burgess Hill maybe ten years ago. It is a very different place now - there is a real buzz about it.

"We have an excellent leisure centre, lovely countryside and a much healthier environment than other places I've lived in, like Hove."

BEXHILL is described as "God's Waiting Room", a town where "the very essence of death permeates every molecule in the air".

Sarah Danes' condemnation of the town concludes: "It is a town waiting to die, on a life support machine, with no one prepared to do the decent thing and put a pillow over its head."

Graham Gubby, leader of Rother District Council, which covers Bexhill, responded: "I've never heard of a magazine called The Idler and I doubt it has a particularly wide audience.

"I suppose people will always try to make a cheap, desperate buck and I find this particularly cheap. I hope the book will be treated with the contempt it deserves.

"I deny Bexhill is anything other than a clean, attractive, safe town in which to live and which has a great future."

The CRAWLEY entry at least takes a certain, twisted pride in the town but not of the kind its civic leaders would probably support.

Gavin Blackmore notes: "Rome wasn't built in a day - but Crawley was. Temporary dumping-ground for bomb-ed-out Cockneys.

"The reassuring thuggery of the locals is exported via an 'axis of evil' - i.e. the train to Horsham - where the Crawley 'scum' duff up and rob the Horsham 'snobs'. It has been so since 1947."

Lizzie Calder moved to Crawley from London in 1954 and believes talk of the difference between "old Crawley" and the "new town" is exaggerated.

Mrs Calder, a volunteer at Crawley Museum, said: "I wouldn't live anywhere else in the world. It's just lovely - the parks and gardens dotted around the town are lovely and the schools are excellent.

"Crawley has plenty of history and heritage too. In Roman times there were lots of metal works - it was the Sheffield of the south.

"The Crawley market started back in 1279. The town has always been busy. I think the criticisms are a little harsh and biased."

Meanwhile HASTINGS, despite the historical resonance of 1066, is apparently "a town that the rest of the south of England forgot".

Ian Tester points out: "No roads go there. Fashion and style left the town in 1959 and the two finest public buildings are two public lavs.

"In the summer it's just about bearable - the thousands of language students that spend two weeks wondering why their parents have sent them to live in a hovel in a dive town with nothing to do really brighten up the place.

"In winter it's bleak, bleak, bleak - driving rain, sea winds and people smoking fags around Iceland (the closest Hastings gets to a deli)."

Hastings MP Michael Foster was outraged, saying: "The title of the book refers more to their research than to Hastings.

"In the 19th Century I think the old Bognor council sued someone for writing book full of scurrilous allegations about the time. There may be a similar case here.

"I don't think we would even be bothered to take it that seriously, though. I would invite the authors to come and take a tour with me, though, to make sure any second edition is more accurate.

"There are some magnificent buildings here - the town hall, St Mary's In The Castle, the marina and the masonic hall.

"It seems they've chosen just about every big town in Sussex for criticism - except Worthing, which is pretty awful itself."

HORSHAM is "a no fun zone run by old conservatives for young conservatives", according to Andy Palmer.

He writes: "Horsham appears to be the perennial winner of South-East In Bloom, a fair indication of where the council's priorities lie.

"Shall we spend it on decent sporting or leisure facilities? No, let's make the town look like the fallout from Ground Force."

Town centre co-ordinator Gill Buchanan admitted there was a shortage of things to do for youngsters but added: "I don't think it would put off about 97 per cent of the population here.

"We don't have the space to entice the leisure operators that would appeal to the 13 to 19-year-old age group. But these sound like highly unfair comments, bearing in mind the improvements there have been.

"In terms of shops, cafes and restaurants the choice is now a lot better than it was two years ago. Horsham is a lovely place to live."

A Horsham District Council spokesman pointed to the recently-opened £14.5 million Pavilions In The Park complex as evidence of commitment to leisure improvements.

Simon Carey dismisses PEACEHAVEN as "a tedious town perched on top of cliffs that had sensibly been left to the sheep for the previous two millennia.

"It has no railway, no cinema, no clubs, no sportswear shops, no factories and sadly, for a town beside the sea, no beach.

"It was voted Britain's most boring town in the early-Nineties - the only time I ever admitted to growing up in the place."

Joan Goldrich, 74, of Peacehaven Residents' Association, admitted some of the complaints were valid, particularly the lack of facilities for youngsters.

But she said: "I love it here. The people are lovely - even my dogs get Christmas cards from the local kids.

"You have stunning views just a few minutes' walk away - I have had friends from America amazed by how beautiful it is and the lovely atmosphere."

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