Revealed: This town is the worst place to live in England

Happy new year people of Peterborough, your city has been dethroned as the worst place to live in England according to an online poll.

The Cambridgeshire city has reigned supreme for the last three years in the Facebook poll run by ILiveHere.

But 2022 is Aylesbury’s time to take the title. The Buckinghamshire town gained more than 25 per cent more votes than second-placed Huddersfield in the annual poll.

The tongue-in-cheek survey asks readers of the ILiveHere site to vote for the worst town in the country and has received increased attention in recent years for some of the hilarious comments. Anyone can write articles and share reviews of towns across the UK, which website owners insist are “for entertainment purposes only”.

Aylesbury came out on top after receiving rave reviews from some of the 110,000 voters.

One voter suggested Aylesbury’s clogged up roads drove the town into top spot as the worst place to live in England. They said: “As you enter into Aylesbury, you find yourself in a traffic jam. Don’t worry, it’s all part of the tour. Being stuck in the traffic allows you to observe the magnificent beauty of all the ‘trashy citizens’ that live there.”

Another suggested Stanley Kubrick’s films were more ahead of the time than originally thought. They said: “What can I say? The fact that Stanley Kubrick saw fit to film some of A Clockwork Orange here was horribly prescient.”

It wasn’t all good news for Peterborough. While the city might have escaped the dubious honour of being named 2022’s worst place to live in England, it still did enough to notch fifth spot. 

One rave review read: “The atmosphere in Peterborough is draining. You feel totally isolated from the rest of the world and life in general, as though everything else is going on and you’re not part of it as you’re stuck in this dump.”

As well as Aylesbury, Huddersfield also toppled Peterborough as well as Luton – which was compared to “something out of Shaun of the Dead” – and Liverpool. The Merseyside city was described as bringing together the worst of northern England and Wales, combining “Welsh pig-headedness and Northern self righteousness, a truly toxic stew of humanity”.

The “endless rain” of Greater Manchester town Bolton earned it sixth spot – up a whopping 22 places. Northamptonshire “ch4v palace” Corby, non-mover Essex seaside resort Jaywick, “toilet of Berkshire” Slough and “documentary producer’s dream” Bradford rounded out the top 10. 

There was better news for some of last year’s big hitters with Rochdale, Doncaster, Keighley, Rotherham, Stoke-on-Trent and Nottingham all slipping outside of the top 10 entirely with Keighley and Nottingham missing out on the 50-strong list altogether.

Did your town or city make the cut? Here’s the top 50 list in full.

50. Southampton

49. Staines

48. Plymouth

47. Rotherham

46. Doncaster

45. Swanley

44. Middlesborough

43. Chichester

42. Boston

41. Barnsley

40. Paignton

39. Axminster

38. Leeds

37. Aldershot

36. Sunderland

35. High Wycombe

34. Coventry

33. Torquay

32. Leicester

31. Swindon

30. Andover

29. Stoke-on-Trent

28. Accrington

27. Walsall

26. Ipswich

25. Burnley

24. Hull

23. Abingdon

22. Barking and Dagenham

21. Portsmouth

20. Chatham

19. Dover

18. Grimsby

17. Croydon

16. Rochdale

15. Blackburn

14. Blackpool

13. Oldham

12. Canterbury

11. Didcot

10. Bradford

9. Slough

8. Jaywick

7. Corby

6. Bolton

5. Peterborough

4. Liverpool

3. Luton

2. Huddersfield

1. Aylesbury