West End = Dead End

There's something irrepressibly depressing about a seaside town out of season.

My route this morning took me around the west end of Rhyl or the Chav ghetto as we like to call it. Its a depressing melange of derelict semi derelict and crumbled housing. Failed and burnt out store fronts litter the strip like shells on the shore.

However we have new news for the west end. The fun fair, which is neither fun nor fair, is being knocked down to make brand new housing and a huge ASDA.

This reinvestment is noticeable, half the broken houses have been raised to the ground and new builds are going on all along the front.

I would be optimistic for the seafront but I've lived in North Wales too long. This is what will happen.

2008 - New Executive Housing and ASDA stores are opened. Mayor announces "New wave of Investment in Rhyl beckoning in a Golden age".

2009 - ASDA currently employees more store detectives than actual staff due to high levels of theft and the year old executive apartments have to be rented out to the DSS when its discovered no executive would go within five miles of the west end of Rhyl.

2010 - ASDA forced to close when they come to work one morning to find the store completely stripped of parts and up on bricks. Each executive house now comes with its own sharps bin for all the hypodermics.

2015 - The new Whig government declares the area a disaster zone and virus bombs the whole of Rhyl from orbit wiping out half of its population. Nobody notices.