Places to avoid in Devon - the worst ten parts of the holiday county
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Even a place as wonderful as Devon has places that it would be better for visitors to avoid.
1 Kingsteignton
This small clay-mining village outside Newton Abbot has mutated into a monstrous low-rise sprawl. More than 11,000 people now live in what is officially the UK’s biggest village - only because the residents voted to call themselves a village not a town. You won’t have your car stolen, you’ll just get lost or fall asleep deep in the surburbia of Elm Drive or Darren Close.
2 Union Street, Plymouth
By day it’s a shabby link between the city centre and Devonport Docks. By night Union Street becomes the wildest, rowdiest, most violent and downright dangerous strip west of Bristol.
3 Beacon Heath, Exeter
There’s a nice view from these hills to the north of the city but while you’re admiring them, you risk having the wheels taken off your car. This is a large old council estate, with all the social problems you DON’T expect in Devon: a high proportion of child poverty, single-parents, unemployment, young offenders and boarded-up shops.
4 Westward Ho!
A great beach and dunes - but the town behind them is the worst seaside resort in the county. The few Victorian homes are submerged beneath bungalows, amusements and cheap modern flats. In fact, the sea is now hidden behind tall blocks of modern holiday apartments.
5 Ellacombe, Torquay
Behind the beach, harbour, hotels and shops there’s a sadly neglected suburb of cheap cramped terraces around the town’s football stadium. Ellacombe has high unemployment, low educational achievement and one of the worst teenage pregnancy rates in the country.
6 Willand
One local told us “the only interesting thing about it is the meat processing factory”. Avoid this characterless mid-Devon village alongside the M5. Go to Diggerland theme park nearby instead.
7 Bow
Some lovely old houses, a popular pub and nice countryside all around - but there’s a depressing air about this linear village, as the traffic thunders right through the middle along the main road between Crediton and Okehampton. It had a medieval Royal Charter to hold a market and three-day fair, but it never turned into the town that everyone hoped for and the fair and market have long since died from lack of custom.
8 Wonford, Exeter
The big estates around Rifford Road and Burnhouse Lane have a dreadful reputation locally although things seem to have improved in the last decade. It’s still not somewhere to spend your holiday though.
9 Swilly, Plymouth
The city’s first council estate was built in the 1920s and by the 50s was so deprived that the name ‘Swilly’ was used across Devon as a derogatory term for any degenerate types. So the authorities changed the name of this huge area to a more estate-agent-friendly ‘North Prospect’ although the reputation for petty crime and social deprivation remain.
10 Barnstaple
An increasingly smart and enjoyable town centre is failing to mask the fact that the suburbs of Barnstaple are among the most deprived parts of the county. Visitors would be unwise to wander far from the centre. The crime rate here, amazingly for such a rural area, is one-and-a-half times the National Average and double the rest of North Devon. Violent crime is almost three times higher than the rest of Devon.
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If this helps the grockles out of Westward Ho! then i’m fine with it.
The latest figures from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary show that the average number of crime in the Barnstaple area has decreased by 11% (2009/2010) and is BELOW the English average. Barnstaple is a safe, clean and vibrant town, with a wealth of attractions for the discerning traveller.