New Cumnock in East Ayrshire has been named “Scotland's
most dismal town” in the annual Carbuncle awards.
The town becomes the latest
recipient of the Plook on a Plinth, awarded each year by Urban Realm magazine.
Judges highlighted the “haemorrhaging
of shops” and “a general absence of maintenance on derelict properties” as
reasons for choosing New Cumnock.
The
Plook on a Plinth award was established in 2000 to provoke debate about the
quality of development in many of Scotland's towns and cities.
How
galling must that be for the residents of New Cumnock, on top of all its woes
it’s now featured in the news as the most dismal town in an entire nation.
This
Plook on a Plinth award was designed to provoke debate about the quality of
development in Scottish towns and cities, however I don’t think labelling a
place a dismal town that is full of derelict properties and is haemorrhaging
shops, is the way to get that debate started.
To me
all that does is make the town in question a laughing stock, and makes it sound like a lost cause.
This reminds me of when a book called Crap Towns the 50 Worst Places to Live in the
UK was released, in the months that followed the publishers received letters
nationwide from people furious, that there town hadn’t been included. So the
publishers released a sequel.
I love
a bit of self-deprecating humour, but is nobody proud of where they live or
where they come from anymore?
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