Best & Worst of Warwickshire

[Will]

This is always an interesting topic to see develop, what do you think is the best and worst that Warwickshire Has to offer?

[Abbie]

Here here! I'd say one of the worst things is how touristy the place is, and how locals are forced to pay tourist prices to go and see their local history!

I also think the lack of affordable housing is a disgrace!

[Madhatter]

Worst is that the south of the county gets all our rates to promote its tourism and make the towns pretty, while we get next to nothing and very little help.

Best is that the north warwickshire towns have people in them that are hard working and have built up their own tourist trades through dedication and hard work with very little or no help from the county.
Everything here has been done either by the town council with a very limited budget, flowers, cctv, parks, christmas lights or the public, events, including the shrove tuesday ball game in the street, fun day, carnival, scarecrow festival, free market square parties, vehicle show, war weekends, christmas dickens night, plus many other local just out of Atherstone events helped and supported by Atherstone people and companies, baddesley toe down, Shackerstone familly festival, Caldecote steam show.
Tourism has been encouraged initially by getting the town back to its historic roots, which was a process of regeneration started many years ago, adding the floral displays, reusing derelict land and by the starting of Atherstone booktown project. Next project in Atherstone is development of tourism on our canal which was started by the town council with installation of cctv and is being built on by the town council with the adition of a canal side park and will continue with further improvments and events.

What do you people down their do for your town, and what does your local council do for you.

[Steve W]

I only really know Leamington.

The best are the parks such as Jephson Gardens.

The worst are the abundance of drunks, drug users and mouthy chavs roaming the place.

[Leofric]

This is always an interesting topic to see develop, what do you think is the best and worst that Warwickshire Has to offer?

Best:
Warwick's a nice old town. [Castle is expensive and overrated.]
Kenilworth Castle [A fine ruin]
Draycote Water
Leamington Spa's Parade.
Warwick University (For academic pursuits) and the Arts Centre (For live music and the arts.)


Worst:

Stratford - overhyped, touristy and UNINTERESTING.
NOTHING of significance happened there. Shakespeare's Mum's Egg was penetrated by his Dad's Sperm. That's it. Compared to Coventry, which has seen battles, cathedrals demolished, castles, royalty, blitzes and world famous industries, Stratford is a DULL market town filled with charmless chainstores and a few nice old buildings of the type you get everywhere. Kenilworth and Warwick are also much more interesting. It shows the emptiness and shallowness of the tourist industry. People flock to places that have no story to tell.

Rugby, Nuneaton, Bedworth - unremarkable towns with little character.

As for Coventry:

Best: Earlsdon, southern suburbs, City Centre [If you take the time to find out and explore, it's far more interesting than anywhere else in the country, with some real stories to tell.] Allesley Village, Whitefriar's Alehouse, Windmill, Alma Deli, redevelopment, Coventry Jazz Festival, Coventry Godiva Festival, some decent restaurants [At last!] and a good diversity of population, parks & the canal.

Worst: Sprawling and ugly retail parks, north east corridor -> Bedworth -> Nuneaton - horrible stretch of conurbation. Rubbish shops. Chavs. Ugly Architecture. Ringroads, dual carriageways, subways, lack of live music.

I'll prob. get slated for this, but i've found most Coventry folk to be friendly, if sometimes a little mad! [I'm not local.]

Cov City council do a lot - they arrange and fund the Jazz festival, one the best in Europe, and the Godiva festival as well. They've also managed to get a lot of investment into the city - huge developments like Park Court, Belgrade Plaza, Friars Road, Ikea, the station recevelopment, Swanswell, etc. The city's not going to be recognisable in a few years time.

Madhatter, what is there in Atherstone to see? A colleague of mine who lives in Nuneaton is less than complimentary about the place.

[Leofric]

I only really know Leamington.

The best are the parks such as Jephson Gardens.

The worst are the abundance of drunks, drug users and mouthy chavs roaming the place.


What annoys me about Leamington is the way they've RUINED the parade by filling it with ugly and awkward street furniture - traffic lights, road signs, bollards, fences. Ugh. The lot should be torn out.

[Steve W]

Best:
Stratford - overhyped, touristy and UNINTERESTING.

Could not agree more. Stratford has nothing, and is far too overrated as somewhere to visit. There really isn't a lot to see there.



What annoys me about Leamington is the way they've RUINED the parade by filling it with ugly and awkward street furniture - traffic lights, road signs, bollards, fences. Ugh. The lot should be torn out.

The parade is ok, although I feel they should have taken the opportunity to pedestrianise the road between Regent Street and Warwick Street (where Woolworths is), or even a compromise, and only have buses using the parade.

[Steve W]

One thing Stratford does have that Leamington desperately needs, is a live music venue such as Cox's Yard.

[Madhatter]

Best:
Warwick's a nice old town. [Castle is expensive and overrated.]
Kenilworth Castle [A fine ruin]
Draycote Water
Leamington Spa's Parade.
Warwick University (For academic pursuits) and the Arts Centre (For live music and the arts.)


Worst:

Stratford - overhyped, touristy and UNINTERESTING.
NOTHING of significance happened there. Shakespeare's Mum's Egg was penetrated by his Dad's Sperm. That's it. Compared to Coventry, which has seen battles, cathedrals demolished, castles, royalty, blitzes and world famous industries, Stratford is a DULL market town filled with charmless chainstores and a few nice old buildings of the type you get everywhere. Kenilworth and Warwick are also much more interesting. It shows the emptiness and shallowness of the tourist industry. People flock to places that have no story to tell.

Rugby, Nuneaton, Bedworth - unremarkable towns with little character.

As for Coventry:

Best: Earlsdon, southern suburbs, City Centre [If you take the time to find out and explore, it's far more interesting than anywhere else in the country, with some real stories to tell.] Allesley Village, Whitefriar's Alehouse, Windmill, Alma Deli, redevelopment, Coventry Jazz Festival, Coventry Godiva Festival, some decent restaurants [At last!] and a good diversity of population, parks & the canal.

Worst: Sprawling and ugly retail parks, north east corridor -> Bedworth -> Nuneaton - horrible stretch of conurbation. Rubbish shops. Chavs. Ugly Architecture. Ringroads, dual carriageways, subways, lack of live music.

I'll prob. get slated for this, but i've found most Coventry folk to be friendly, if sometimes a little mad! [I'm not local.]

Cov City council do a lot - they arrange and fund the Jazz festival, one the best in Europe, and the Godiva festival as well. They've also managed to get a lot of investment into the city - huge developments like Park Court, Belgrade Plaza, Friars Road, Ikea, the station recevelopment, Swanswell, etc. The city's not going to be recognisable in a few years time.

Madhatter, what is there in Atherstone to see? A colleague of mine who lives in Nuneaton is less than complimentary about the place.
Your having a laugh, I wasin coventry at the weekend and it's a filthy dirty featureless dump, only thing worth seeing is the motor musuem. pretty sad for a city centre. unless of course you're counting ikea.
Nuneaton is a far more pleasant place to be, real building nice architecture, nice people, good range of shops national and independant, and theres no fear of being mugged. I'd say Nuneaton is at the bottom of the scale, leamington warwick and stratford higher. can't really include poor lil bedworth as its treated as a poor orphan of nuneaton, a district centre.

Whats in Atherstone, a lil town of 8,000 12 if you count its adjoining conurbations, compared to cov size for size a damn lot more. events throughout the year, historic ball game, fun day, war weekends, jazz weekends, carnival, roman reinactment, scarecrow weekend, parties in the square, classic vehicle show in the square, dickens night,hopefully outdoor live music events this year set in a picturesque market square,unique individual shops, pubs, bars, hotels, restaurants, cafes, bookshops, old buildings, heritage centre, character, the canal, sculpture trail,country parks, river anchor, dobbies largest garden centre in europe, maze workd claimed to be largest mazes, fantazia, dobbies country park, lakes wildlife deer .further out kingsbury water park up the road, out the other way bosworth water park, canal, steam railway, bosworth battlefield, twycross zoo, conkers country park in the national forest,drayton manor up the road
at tamworth. plus we have clean streets decorated with flowers all year round and an excellent christmas light display that made national tv.

All with very little funding from borough council and rarely any from county council

Must admit cov are trying though, monstrosity square for example, problem with cov is the centre is a concrete jungle and shopping centres, no matter what you do it will be just that.they can try and have put charachter into the outside but you never will into that town centre.

[Steve W]

Sorry but I have to disagree. I do not know anybody who has been to Nuneaton and actually likes the place.

As for Cov, it's a city. You name me one city in the UK that doesn't have the problems Cov has, or at least haven't had the problems Cov has in the past? Places like Manchester and Birmingham have had problems, still do to some extent, but they've had major funding and have been re-developing for years. The redevelpment of Cov is still in its infancy in camparison.

Atherstone I've only ever been to once, and I have to admit, its seems lovely there.

[chillitt]

the worst thing about warwickshire is without a doubt, warwick mop. this monstrous carbuncle will be erupting over warwick town centre on the 13th, 14th, 20th and 21st of october. there will be untrained staff manning dangerous rides and un hygenic food stalls. the town centre will be inaccessable from 4pm on the thursday before it starts, making the town unsafe due to lack of access to emergency services. every year the fire brigade send an engine through to make sure they are behaving, usually takes about an hour and lots of swearing to get it through.
every year there are people claiming to be collecting for charity. but without i.d. or even regd. charity numbers...
every year untaxed vehicles belch 'washed' diesel exhaust fumes over the town for days on end.
rubbish is strewn everywhere. oil is poured down drains.
anyone running a shop in the town centre may as well give up and close for the weekend as there is no where for staff or customers to park and no way for deliveries or collections to get anywhere near the shops.
best thing about warwick is the day the mop leaves....

[Steve W]

Have to agree on that one. I've not lived in this area for that long (7 years), but I've never seen the point of it to be honest.

[Lex]

I've been a member of the National Trust for a couple of years now, and have seen some really amazing NT properties in Warwickshire.

[Lex]

A worst bit: the whole county is turning into a building site!

[rebbonk]

But why, Lex?

We are a relatively small country, we are already unable to supply our own food or energy. Why keep on expanding? We aren't going to help anyone if we allow the lifeboat to be sunk.

[Lex]

Mostly, it seems to have been imposed on the county & city by central government, who also seems to be obsessed with 'rewilding' a lot of whatever's not being concreted over.

I get the feeling the government doesn't give 2 hoots about farming, as it's such a small part of the economy. They can afford the increased costs associated with importing food (there was an interesting report on that on Radio 4's Today programme this morning), and with the bad deal we got from Brexit starting to unravel due the Northern Ireland farce, it could get even more expensive.

I'm of the opinion that we should be looking to becoming more self-sufficient in food, but in a sustainable way so the environment can be helped too (which, no-one seems to point out much, is in out benefit in the long run).

[rebbonk]

...I'm of the opinion that we should be looking to becoming more self-sufficient in food...

We should be self-sufficient in everything we possibly can be. Recent events have highlighted the perils of relying on outside supplies.

[Lex]

Planting trees is only part of the picture. Soil management, restoring peat moors, plus many, many other initiatives also contribute to managing climate change: https://rugbyobserver.co.uk/news/leafy-warwickshire-set-to-become-even-greener-38725/

[margaret]

It can be done.
Many moons ago when I was growing up in Scotland, family of 5 kids, we lived on local produce from the farms mostly. We weren't terrifically well off money wise, but we managed or my parents seemed to manage well with food and clothing for us. Went off too school (walked) with a good breakfast in us, Porridge several times a week. We didn't know how well off we were.
We grew up extremely healthy kids. Plenty of fresh air too.
This is why I can't understand why I read about starving kids and poverty today.

What has gone wrong?

[rebbonk]

I think people expect too much these days and have become soft.

I look at people using foodbanks and I honestly think, 'you hardly look half starved and I see that you can still afford tattoos, fags, booze and a car!'

The internet is awash with people saying how cold it is and that they've got their heating on! Eh? It's June, it might not be the warmest June I've known, but it certainly isn't the coldest. And no, my heating isn't on!

Then we have the interference of the nanny state. People now expect the government to help them no matter what and have become resistant to being responsible for their own lives and well being.

All in all, from where I'm sitting, the future for many people doesn't look too rosy.

[margaret]

There's no way I will put my heating on in June. Yes its been a bit cool but nothing like so cold you need the heating on. Even in the winter we don't have it on all day. People have become soft in the head I think.

[Lex]

We should be self-sufficient in everything we possibly can be. Recent events have highlighted the perils of relying on outside supplies.

A big grant to plant more trees: https://stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/woodlands-set-to-benefit-from-big-cash-boost-38970/

I was reading a book recently about North European folklore. Part of it said that odd corners of fields were left to grow wild to provide local nature spirits with somewhere to live. It sounded very much like the modern practice of doing the same thing to encourage biodiversity. Maybe more of this could be done instead of planting entire fields/farms.