Britain's worst buildings
The brutalist car park towers over Gateshead’s 19th century
skyline
George Ferguson
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In the largest ever survey of its kind, Channel 4 asked the public to vote for the buildings they would like to see demolished. The result was an amazing 10,000 votes for 1,000 different buildings – from public loos to palaces, and from piers to power stations – all of which affect our lives and, in some cases, blight our communities. Some interesting themes emerged.
- Most of the nominated buildings were constructed in the last 50 years
- The poll highlighted the number of derelict buildings that attract drug users, graffiti artists and criminals
- There are hundreds of thousands of empty homes across Britain
- Tower blocks are high on the list of hated buildings
- Many of our civic buildings, stations and tourist 'attractions' make us ashamed of our home towns.
In short, the length and breadth of Britain, buildings lie empty and abandoned or, if in use, unloved and unfit for their purpose. As well as listing buildings that we value and want to keep, George Ferguson argues that we would dramatically improve our environment by creating an X-list of structures that should be demolished or transformed.
He also gives an overview of the 12 buildings you'd most like to target for demolition: the Dirty Dozen.
You can see them for yourselves on our interactive map.