I’m telling you nothing new here: Nottingham’s a dump. But then again, so is everywhere else - within reason, and with the usual caveats. Cities across England seem to share the same weary story. I do appreciate it’s more nuance than that, of course.
We had the same conversation after a day out in Ipswich. I’ve had similar thoughts walking back through Colchester.
Actually, Norwich was the exception. Admittedly, I only had a day to blitz the place, but it didn’t carry that same air of decline - that quiet sense of things being irreversibly broken - that hangs over Nottingham these days.
And that hurts. It’s my hometown, after all. I only had time for a brief wander today, but even from my unscientific stroll it’s clear the city has deteriorated over the past year.
The feeling hit hardest around Broad Marsh. That once-infamous shopping centre is now an empty shell, being taken down pillar by pillar. It was an absolute shambles in its final years, sure, but for those of us who grew up here, Broad Marsh was the gateway to the city.
I looked up at the remnants of the old building today and remembered the shops that once defined my teenage years: Revolver Records, the smaller indoor HMV, even that gift shop in the early ’80s that sold knock-off Rubik’s Snakes and the poster of the tennis player scratching her arse.
Maybe I’m romanticising it all. Maybe the Nottingham of my youth wasn’t so different - maybe this is what fifty-somethings do: wander their hometowns remembering when it was all a bit better, a bit brighter, a bit more “proper.”
But I can’t see how the city bounces back from where it is now. Will anyone really be reminiscing about “the good old days” of 2025 in twenty-five years’ time? I doubt it.
I’m not up to speed on what the future holds for Broad Marsh. There’s a small area there now that’s turned into a kind of urban wilderness - the planting started out tidy, but it’s been allowed to rewild itself, thankfully. Unless there’s a proper master plan and serious investment, maybe that’s the best thing for it: let nature take over until the money - and the imagination - returns. At least it gives today’s teenagers somewhere to carve out their own memories.
Because that’s what it’s all about, really. My looking-ahead days are long gone. I’m content to listen to my records, buy clothes I’ll never wear, and drink endless cups of tea.
But as I walked around Nottingham at lunchtime, I couldn’t shake the thought: what kind of future are we leaving for the young? I loved my teenage years - full of optimism, affordable education, and at least the promise of a job or two. It more or less worked out.
But to be 16, 17 or 18 in 2025? Good luck.
