Weymouth is hosting the sailing events at next year’s Olympic Games and have allegedly been making a whole raft of “improvements” to the town in preparation. Yesterday I went into the centre of Weymouth for the first time in many months to visit the Transition Towns Spring Fair. What a huge disappointment the town has become….
When did Weymouth slip from being merely seedy to nightmarish? Everywhere you look there’s filth, dereliction, littering and, of course, roadworks and traffic jams. Half of the main street is made up of grimy pubs and empty shops, the newspapers are full of hoteliers and shopkeepers complaining about the loss of trade, or full of reports of armed theft and even murder!
Isn’t Weymouth supposed to be one of the premier resorts on the South Coast? If so then I pity the other resorts. There’s going to be an awful lot of disappointed and disgusted people from all over the world next year when they are forced to visit Weymouth for the Olympic Sailing Events.
What the place needs is a damn good clean – get everybody who’s able out with pressure washers and paintbrushes to spruce up the streets. There are some attractive buildings in the town centre but you don’t notice them under the layer of crap they’re carrying – the Guildhall is a classic example, its a Grade 2 listed building that’s been virtually abandoned by the council, no maintenance, no plans to refurbish or sell on to someone who may refurbish, just allowed to gather rubbish and slowly decay. Money is wasted on replacing Esplanade lights that nobody wanted changing, building road schemes that are guaranteed to cause even bigger traffic hold-ups than before the “improvements”, doing everything but listening to what the local people want… No wonder residents don’t respect their own town centre and abuse it so badly.
I have to visit Weymouth occasionally to visit a fishing tackle shop, to catch a ferry or charter boat, to deliver an order to a customer, etc. What I don’t have to do and have no intention of doing in the future is visiting Weymouth for leisure or for pleasure – and I’d advise everyone else to avoid it too unless you have a very strong stomach and a high tolerance to abuse from passing drunks and drug addicts.
Weymouth – you’re the ass-hole of Dorset and I’m ashamed of you! 
