You’ve got to feel sorry for the town planners who renovated Maidstone city centre in 2018. They tried extremely hard, pedestrianised the shopping areas to create what is in fact more than acceptable to look at….and at first look, you’d be forgiven for thinking it is ‘quite a nice area’. There are plenty of chain restaurants, chain hotels, the a-z of high street shops that inspire that feeling of ‘this could be any other renovated city centre in some nondescript part of the world’. It has all the character of a pair of unisex, elasticated waisted, beige slacks whose only design mandate was to be as dull as they possibly could.
However, I do it a disservice. Surely a town whose local hospital has had to remove hand sanitiser bays due to alcoholics drinking from them must have a bit of life to it? Yes, yes it does, but that life takes the form of angry white men who have fallen out of one of the many wetherspoons (what town could possibly need THREE wetherspoons within one square mile) onto the streets, so bored with their lives that the only option is to fight other miserable white men.
There is also nothing to do. Really nothing. The restaurants stop serving around 9pm, and after the pubs have kicked everyone out there is a choice of 3 late night establishments. ‘[an establishment we can’t name for legal reasons]’ seems to be the popular choice, and there you can be treated to misogyny, violence, and bouncers whose job satisfaction seems to come from bullying patrons and calling women ‘*****’.
The one feature that sticks out the most there, no matter how years pass is the roaring trade for drug dealers. You can take a lovely stroll down the high street and the local addict community will become familiar faces, all telling different stories depending on the day as to why they need money. They won’t be homeless, as on the upside our council are very good to the homeless regarding accommodation. They will tell you they are though, and spend the day congregating about the Victoria monument until it’s time to score and go home. The town boasts one of the highest death rates for addicts outside of wales, being as cited the ‘drug death capital’.
Another great feature is the many young mothers swearing at their toddlers without an inch of embarrassment. In short, it’s an absolute sh*thole. I am moving out as soon as [Covid19] lockdown is over and I am counting the seconds. If not I will take to wearing a sandwich board proclaiming THE END IS NIGH.
Do not move here.
