Welcome to stinksville

I live in Bournemouth, home to seven miles of beautiful white beaches, the Jurassic coast and neighbour to sandbanks, one of the most exclusive places in the county

I can walk through Bournemouth’s award winning gardens, through the exotic bird sanctuary, past the Russell Cotes museum (which use to be free to enter), down to the beach, where I can swim in a blue flag sea and admire the view of the Isles of Wight and the Needles

It should be the perfect place to live, peace, harmony and tranquillity....but it’s not

It’s become a Mecca for stag and hen parties, for people wanting a “holiday at home” for large groups of people wanting to go away for the weekend to forget how to behave like human beings and piss in doorways

And the people that are responsible for town planning don’t really help the situation, as you drive into Bournemouth on the A338 you are welcomed by a sign for Bournemouth – and the stink of the sewage plant next to it.

It’s the only road into town, and it’s an unhappy coincidence that the sign and the plant are in the same place, the sign might as well say “welcome to stinksville”

Of course there’s the train, you pull into Bournemouth train station, a beautiful piece of architecture opened 1885 (which was 73 years after the first house in Bournemouth was built).  As you walk out of the station you are greeted by a view of the Asda superstore, and have to run the gauntlet of “crack ally”

Sounds extreme? Not really, Bournemouth’s planners have seen fit to open more rehabilitation centres per square mile than anywhere else in the country, maybe for the sea air?

People visiting run the risk of being ripped off by taxi’s (they've tried it with me and I live here), getting accosted by big issue sellers every 500 yards, having junkies asking for strange sums of money (“come on mate, I only need another £1.47 to get back home”), gangs of lads drinking Strongbow and pitting their dogs against each other and so on

You go out on a Friday or Saturday night at your own risk, big groups out on the lash, looking for a fight, and generally treating the town worse than they probably treat their own toilets

My heart sinks that such a beautiful place has been ruined by a council who haven't got a long term plan for the town, rather a short term goal of getting as much cash out of the tourist season as they can

- bod