Slough is the UK’s most miserable place to live, according to a large Rightmove survey.

24 comments

1. [removed]

2. Moved half way around the world just to be miserable lol

3. Did the poet John Betjeman (1906-1984) have it right?

   Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
   It isn’t fit for humans now,
   There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
   Swarm over, Death!

   Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
   Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
   Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
   Tinned minds, tinned breath.

   etc etc…

4. I grew up in Windsor and had to go to Slough often (Windsor’s town centre is mostly just shops for tourists and rich people). Luckily never had to live there, but just visiting it was depressing. Are a few factories around pumping smoke into the air (you can see the Mars factory chimney from Windsor) so everything feels dirty and grimey. I remember going on the bus there as a kid, and my spirits just falling once you get to that roundabout near the town centre (it’s on The Office titles).

   Fun anecdote: when Windsor Castle caught on fire in 92, we saw the smoke from school, and just assumed it was some new factory in Slough that had started up. It wasn’t until I got home that I found out the news.

5. Used to work just outside Datchet (charming little village), but went into Slough a few times for lunch. One of the most utterly depressing places I’ve been to.

6. Poor Crawley didn’t make the list.

   So much misery, not enough space to list it all.

7. Can confirm. Had the displeasure of doing deliveries there earlier today.

   Have safely arrived back in London now

8. This thread is getting a lot of traction from outsiders, it’s pronounced “sluff”.

9. Windsor based here. It’s certainly not the nicest place on earth but the outskirts are really nice and it’s really quickly into London.

   Personally it’s not different to much of the suburban urban sprawl inside the M25 just there’s nicer places just down the road so it gets a reputation.

   The trading estate dominates the town and really it doesn’t have much of a town centre but that’s because people have options for entertainment and relaxing really close by

10. ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough

    It isn’t fit for humans now’

    (John Betjeman)

11. Yeah but the Swindon lot are little slugs with no personality

12. I’m from Slough. I agree. Shit hole.
    Moved away when I was 11 but was forced to visit family. Ha ha ha

13. Slough is like Monte Carlo compared to Tipton. If it was called Royal Sloughberton, it wouldnt even feature. It gets shit on for a shitty name. That is all really. Id take Slough over Luton every time.

14. It may be awful, but the sludge needs just the other side of the M4 give it a smell you can’t forget.

15. I grew up in Maidenhead and went to Slough as a lot as a kid (for the cinema) and for work. Just looking at the picture in the banner makes me sad.

    I had a job interview at Pinewood once. I got the job. My first role as a professional prop maker. I was on cloud nine. I decided to walk the 90 minutes back to Slough train station. When I got to the town centre some guy in his BMW decided to start his parked car and drive towards me a brake hard, just so he could shout “get the fuck out the way, bruv”. I knew I was back in Slough then.

16. I went there in may to pick up some trainers from footlocker.

    What a total shit hole. I work in East London, and it makes poplar seem like Belgravia.

    Funny, driving through Windsor I thought Slough would be quite nice.

    I did have a nice conversation with a guy in a mobility scooter and a British bulldog.

17. I had to go into Slough to do my driving theory test, I passed but decided to not bother passing my practical exam just incase I take a series of wrong turns and accidentally end up back there.

18. Fun fact: Slough is the most economically productive place per capita in the UK

19. Slough’s nightlife is incredible; it’s got two nightclubs, it’s got Chasers and New York, New York. They call it the nightclub that never sleeps.

20. I live about 15 min drive from Slough. It’s one of the worst, most depressing places I’ve seen.I was last there in May, and the place smelled of human waste, and there were alcoholics and drug addicts everywhere. I grew up in a shit hole area, so it’s not snobbishness, but Slough just shocked me

21. Slough has always been slough – but now it’s been whittled down to literally nothing. It had tacky nightlife, it had a town centre, it had social housing. Now it’s nothing except for a big Tesco and a Poundland. At least the surrounding areas are easy to get to.

22. More convenient than a Tesco Express, close to Windsor but the property’s less. Keeps the businesses of Britain great. It’s got Europe’s biggest trading estate.

23. I’ve heard of estate agents referring to it optimistically as Windsor Borders.

24. Lived there for a year, 15 years ago. For sure not a highlight of living standards but I feel now it just became a self perpetuating meme. I’ve been hearing jokes about Slough since I was old enough to understand jokes. I feel the people voting in these polls are the people forced to commute there during the week, not the people living there.

    Sure, it had a dodgy area, but most of the place is offices so weekends were blissfully quiet, a bit like town centres during the pandemic. I quite enjoyed jogging along the Thames and never felt I was in danger in any part. You could always bike into Windsor if you wanted a change of scenery.

    I’ve seen coastal towns 100 times more depressing. Slough is depressing in a, missing a vibrant community sort of way. True depressing is a complete lack of hope in the eyes of the people there.

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