THE new 2,689-mile King Charles III coastal path takes walkers through many of the country’s most exquisite areas of severe deprivation. Tour these today:
Sellafield, Cumbria
Just inland is the gorgeous and perpetually rain-shrouded Lake District, but why go there when you can stroll slowly past the UK’s centre for nuclear waste management and decommissioning? This 650-acre concrete crescendo holds 140 tonnes of plutonium and far, far more of radioactive sludge. Take selfies!
Grimsby, Lincolnshire
The ‘grim’ is there for a reason, just as a different word lies within neighbouring Scunthorpe. First entered a long period of decline in the 15th century, then was hit by the Luftwaffe, then the Common Fisheries Policy. Consequently holds the second-most deprived ward in the UK, is Britain’s worklessness capital, and voted in a Reform mayor.
Bognor Regis, Sussex
Travel west from the lights and liberalism of Brighton and soon you’re in Bognor, a location which boasts the full trifecta: low employment, crime and addiction. Famously disparaged by King George V, make sure to note the shaven-headed young men on the seafront drinking white cider at 9am. How tempting walking into the sea never to return has become!
Middlesbrough, North Yorks
Seeing bombed refineries in Iran and thinking ‘I wish I could visit somewhere so thrillingly industrial’? Strolling this section of the path will bless you with more heavy industry and post-manufacturing decline than you could ever wish for, and the locals are as hostile as any Islamic regime you could name. Truly you’ll be glad to reach Sunderland.
Morecambe, Lancashire
Once a tourist attraction, Morecambe has reversed polarity to become a tourist repeller. The pier went into the sea, Noel Edmonds’s World of Crinkley Bottom closed after the Blobbygate scandal, and the sea is either three miles of muddy sand away or coming at you terrifyingly fast. An Eden project is being built here, in a fine show of irony.
Land’s End, Cornwall
Home to possibly Britain’s most grasping theme park, Britain’s most expensive car park and a sign saying it’s Land’s End you have to pay to take your photograph next to, Land’s End is truly not worth the trouble. And now you’ve got hundreds of miles to walk back to the good bits of Britain which are inland near rivers. Get going!
