A visitor to one of England’s most bashed towns has described the sad scenes in the town centre, including the near-abandoned shopping centre that has an entire floor cut off to shoppers. A YouTube creator, who uses the username TurdTowns, visited a number of towns in the county of Lincolnshire, and one of them left him less than impressed. There are a number of towns in the English county that get bashed regularly, such as Skegness, but there are also towns that you may have never heard of.
One of them is Grantham, which is located in the south of the county and is home to around 44,000 residents. Fact: It is the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher. In a recent video exploring Lincolnshire, the YouTuber visited the “worst” towns in the county, and Grantham was ranked number six on the list for a number of reasons. Among them was its town centre with a slew of shut-down shops and its shopping centre that has so many empty units that an entire floor is closed off to the public.
The George Shopping Centre is found in the old George Hotel, and was converted for its new uses in 1990. While the promise at the time was a bustling hub for business and entertainment, the vision has died off slightly, although there have been signs of life returning to the centre in recent years.
Taking a brutal swipe at the town, he says: “Grantham has the most rundown shopping street in today’s video. You just feel miserable walking around here.
“Buildings are either boarded up, covered in scaffolding or smashed to oblivion.” Moving on to talk about the shopping centre, he commented: “The George Shopping Centre is so bad that they had to barricade off the entire upper floor, which is actually a real shame, because I like the style of this mall.”
He continued: “It looked like a hotel or a fancy train station. It had some character in a sea of mediocrity. Fortunately, it’s not the only mall in the town centre.”
He went on to call Grantham “extremely unappealing”. However, there have been moves made in the hopes of bringing more life into the town centre.
Local publication LinsOnline reported earlier this year that new business openings were bringing hope to Grantham and the shopping centre there. Laura van Boven, who opened The Reading Room book shop in The George Shopping Centre at the beginning of the year, told the publication that locals are “glad to have a bookshop in Grantham again after so many years”.
She added: “Most people in here [the shopping centre] live in Grantham and I just think it is important to make the effort to support these people who are trying to do something to make the town better.”
Meanwhile, Robert and Kerry Cameron opened Cameron’s Crafts, said that they have seen a number of businesses moving out of the shopping centre since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Robert explained: “I do have some very fond memories of what it used to be like 20-odd years ago. It was a very good building but since covid, with a lot of businesses moving out, it has taken a downturn. But I do have faith it is going to come back. It is a shame it has ended up this way.”
