I’ve lived in Great Yarmouth my entire life. What I’ve found is, the entire area and surrounding areas you have to pick out the best and the worst. You have your sh*t areas like GY, Southtown, Cobholm, Lowestoft, but there are some nice areas like Caister, Bradwell, Carlton and Belton. Gorleston is somewhere in between. I always find it amazing how within a 2 mile radius, the area can go from very nice, to horrible. But moving on…..
Keeping with Great Yarmouth, it is an absolute mess to live in. As far as work goes, the economy booms in summer, when we have all 10+ holiday parks are open and **** do you know about it. GY has not got enough parking for locals, let alone when all the ‘The Sun’ holiday makers are down to visit the sh*thole. Although I think having these tourists visit is good for the town, when winter comes around, the place does feel worse than half empty. The only time the area feels alive is the 9-5 rush hour that our roads cannot deal with. (In all fairness they do seem to be making some short and long term improvements to our road networkings.)
Moving on to the actual housing slums of Great Yarmouth; There is the tiniest area 1 mile north of the seafront strip, which I would consider living in. A couple of nice big houses, but still the worry of the horrible surrounding areas and the main seafront (oh we’ll get to that) a few miles down. Apart from that tiny specific location, I would not live here. When looking to buy a house I specifically told my advisor I will not buy in that area, because that would mean a 30+ commitment to living in the centre of GY, which, when worded like that, can be compared to that of a prison sentence.
If I sound like I’m being snobby or dramatic about the area then please here my real life example; I have a close friend who lives on one of the skankiest roads in the whole of GY central. It has a few shops and leads directly to the seafront. If you know then you know. I never drive my car to his house, for fear of damage to my car, or something happening to me whilst walking to my car, especially after 10pm. I taxi there and back.
Well as I’m writing this (December 2017), just over 1 month ago, a person was stabbed to death 1/4 mile from where my friend lives.
Finally I want to speak about the entertainment side of the place.
Daytime – the shopping is terrible. You have market gates “shopping centre” which although improved over the years, just doesn’t have anything exciting, you’d walk round the shops in less than an hour and that would be your entire shopping experience finished. Market stands. Market stands are a ‘symbol’ of GY, but they are dated. But a building in tr place of it so we can have more decent shops, and not ******* fish and cannabis stalls. Everyone knows just to go to Norwich, where you can spend an entire day shopping.
Nighttime: I would say the nightlife experience in GY is 90% of the year ****, but if you do go out on the right day, it will be busy, buzzing and you will have a good time. However, let’s speak about that 90%. Once again falling into the shadow of Norwich, the clubs do not feel big, they don’t feel high end, they feel small, crowded and ****. I’m told it’s pretty easy to pull ***** if that’s what you’re into, but any female going out, good luck fighting off the lads and the older men too. Rank.
Bottom line
On a very very rare day, Great Yarmouth can be a lively good place to live and be. The area is making improvements to come away from it’s past, but for now and for the foreseeable future, it’s still rightfully nicknamed, as the teens call it: Dirty GY
