The great suburban/commuter towns of SE England

[davesgcr]

yes, it's in the general direction of watford, north west of london, so counts as the london commuter belt.

when transport for london took over the bit of suburban railway there, the london transport museum did a line of soft toy foxes called 'bushey' in their shop

A very pleasant place , slightly ruined by traffic and access to / from Watford. I provided them with a 30 min frequency fast service to London Euston all day and that went down very well indeed. Easily done too.

 

[A380]

Luton today - went on a whim. Wasn't expecting much after Slough.. Was surprised.. town centre seemed to be thriving and on the up. Good feel to the place. New shops opening up - including some coffee places. Total contrast to Slough.

Interestingly the demographic and shops were very similar to my own patch in London. - Shunned by the white middle class. Looked like there might be a few decent pubs in the place as well.

Luton is quite like a north London borough that happens to be 30 miles up the M1. I say that in both good and bad ways.

 

[Boo Radley75]

Christ! Are trees illegal in Harlow?

Oh, before that layout they spent 20K on trees in giant plant pots which rapidly died. It's been going on for years, them finding stupid things to do with the Market Square, other than holding a market in it. After that they put a load of concrete chess tables and table tennis tables in, which the winos found a great place to sit and abuse random shoppers, while they supped on their cans of tramp juice. At the moment, they've decided to dig it all up and put a load of fencing around it.

 

[stavros]

After that they put a load of concrete chess tables and table tennis tables in,

I think that's an Essex-wide thing, as I've seen them in Colchester, Chelmsford and Bas-Vegas.