The six worst places on the Isle of Wight

I was born and raised in Sandown but have lived in London for the last 30 years. I find it supremely painful to go back to what used to be a vibrant holiday resort. It used to have multiple nightclubs, tons of stuff for kids and young people to do, good shopping, great pubs, and a super friendly atmosphere. Carnival and Regatta in the summer - a bit sleepy but pleasant in the winter. My home town for all my formative years - the Commercial pub my local when I was (almost) old enough to drink. Now Sandown is like a disgusting rotten tooth, full of decay and crumbling with nobody seeming to care. The people who are left are either too old to move away or too apathetic to care what a cesspit such a lovely little seaside town has turned into. As someone else said, the disgusting greed of the ferry companies, the withdrawal of the little bit of Island industry like Plessy Radar, British Hovercraft , Elliot Turbo etc that kept full time employment going out of the holiday season badly damaged the island economy along with package holidays. Hoteliers also have to shoulder some of the blame - many 'scalped' the tourists during the season then buggered off to the south of France or Spain for the winter without investing any money at all in getting their hotels up to modern standards. It's not all circumstances that are out of local inhabitants hands: as teenagers we used to call the lack of get up and go on the island the 'Island Disease' - so the inhabitants must bear some of the responsibility for the decline too. Retirees from the mainland who want no progress, deeply conservative with large and small 'C's have strangled their own paradise. Sandown is rotting in it's own juices - and sadly I've seen now it so my lovely memories of it are tarnished.

A Cheaper ferry service would get more people coming in.

I grew up on the Island and only moved away about 5 years ago. Sandown deserves its TT status, but it never used to be like that; when I was young it was rammed during the summer. All the shops would stay open until 9 or 10pm, the guest houses were thriving, and there were far more arcades and way fewer boarded-up buildings. Unfortunately, the greed of the ferry companies has severely impacted tourism to the island, and Sandown seems to be the worst casualty.

As an Island resident I feel the ferry companies have a lot to answer for. Sometimes the last high speed passenger ferry to the island might be 10pm which is great when you've travelled to Portsmouth to see a band who might finish at 10.30pm. That is not "service". Neither is their extortion.

I live on the island and knew instantly the worst would be Sandown. The issue with the hotels there, are a "developer" buys then, gets refused planning permission and then theres a fire. Has happened multiple times. The derelict buildings also end up trashed by "squatters"

''Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'' If you are looking for bad things, they will undoubtedly be found. But....look for pretty out of the way places, walks, meadows, copses, stunning scenery, best sunsets ever, hidden coves, amazing gardens, dinosaur fossils, nature reserves, history and best fish and chips ever in Cowes and a Donkey Sanctuary et al, then look no more! Pop your rose coloured spectacles on and see through the grey & enjoy the feeling of being away from Mainland Britain. I do agree with Sandown though...once a go to vibrant fun place, now a distant memory of times that were.

The video has had an effect. Since it hit the local papers I've never seen so many shops with scaffold up getting done up in Newport. Obviously the council has taken the shop owners to task on the poor state of the buildings.

Both Wroxall and Ventnor could be dramatically improved if the railway from Ryde was reopened. Just a few years ago there seemed a real chance this could happen using "reverse Beeching" funds the government made available. But local people seemed to oppose it - wanting to keep part of the old line as a foorpath. Seems to sum up the attitude of the whole island.

Sadly the IOW harks back to a golden age, Queen Victoria loved the place her favourite residence I believe. I have pleasant memories of the Island, fossil hunting with my young daughter and long summer evenings. Now she's grown up and I'm a fossil myself, still the memories last forever...

Just booked a holiday to tenerife yesterday, for next month. So while watching this, I thought I’d see how much it would cost for the same dates, two weeks in the isle of white. Starts at £1,488 to £9,000! That’s accommodation only. My two weeks in Tenerife in a really nice apartment I’ve stayed in before, is only £600, and flights £250… no wonder tourist are not flocking there anymore. It’s cheaper to go abroad.

As an Island native, gentrification and people buying second homes has absolutely devastated us. Locals can't afford housing, and prices have hiked so much that what used to be a vibrant and cheap holiday place sees tourism die.

Born and bred on the Island, trouble with the tourist towns is its cheaper for people to go abroad than to the Island, that's why so many hotels and holiday camps have closed, but it the same all over the country no matter were you go

Just for the record in Ventnor, Miss Rene Howe was my first-year primary school teacher. She was also the boss of the Girl Guides

You are right about the Isle of Wight as few of the towns are truly bad by comparison with others you’ve listed before. Class A drugs are a problem here, but so so in much of the urbanised south coast from Plymouth to Dover and beyond. Seasonal unemployment is high and hits the locals hard as do house prices. The best part of Shanklin is the old village which is really quite pretty. Newport has always served like a functional central point with all the main meeting points for transport and services so never needed to be pretty, the legacy of which is today’s ugly road network. Sandown is very sad -10 years ago it was quite like Ryde is now, 20 years ago it was probably the busiest resort i visited on the island. East Cowes was supposed to be the worst place back then.

I've lived on the island - in various parts of it - for all of my 72 years. All of the towns are awful places to live in or visit, though I spent the happiest years of my life in Ryde, where at the time there was a good community, plentiful shops, and while there was certainly crime associated with drugs, you knew where to go if you liked that sort of thing, and where not to go if you didn't. I also worked in Ryde, and had an office there. If I had to live in a town again, it's Ryde I'd choose. Newport is a sink - depressing in just about every way, very little sense of community, there's been some terrible architecture imposed on the town - one of the worst bits being County Hall, and there's empty property which could and should be used for housing. The trouble with the whole island is that industry has deserted it, and tourism is no longer enough to keep us afloat: we've never found anything to replace either - except excessive development of ghastly bungalows of the DunRoamin variety: where old people come to retire, a partner dies, they're on their own, they need the car because the shops are too far away, and then they can't drive any more, and go into 'homes'. Why anyone allows that to happen to them is beyond me. Death is preferable. There's stark poverty here, homelessness, dreadful private lets. And by the way - second homes are a contradiction in terms; they aren't homes, they're conveniences for the wealthy and should be outlawed; as should Air B & B. There IS beautiful countryside, if you can access it. A pleasant life can be led here - but work? If you're young, there's no further education worthy of the name, and precious little good quality employment. We need investment - social housing, i.e. homes that ARE real homes, let or sold at achievable cost, investment in transport (e.g. rail, rather than roads, though these are in dismal shape), and a university would be a huge boost. I don't see any of this happening, though - not under this government, and not under this economic system either. Why do people say the Isle of Wight is a great place to live? Presumably because they're comparing it with Swindon, Croydon, Portsmouth - towns in this country are so often crappy places to live, and stuck as we are as an after-thought off the south coast, there's no reason why ours should be any better: the surrpise is that they're not a lot worse.

i live there i am young and its dead worth mentioning we have more car crashes here than Portsmouth and Southampton because we have some of the worst drivers in the uk and we do have knife crime in Shanklin and Sandown frequently hotels get set on fire a lot for arson thats why they look awful just search car crashes or hotel fires on the isle of wight you will see for yourself.

Been visiting the island since childhood in the 1970s and witnessed the decline in some places. It's very sad because it is a special place but nothing is forever and I hope that the island and Caulkheads have a lucrative renaissance at some point.

I have lived in the island all my life (40 yrs) and it is such a shame it is going downhill. Watching this video it was upsetting to realise how bad it had got. I actually currently live in Sandown and most of the hotels that are derelict have been closed since before Covid I think. About 10 years ago it was a great place and even had a nightclub (wasn’t the best). If you had walked down the steps next to the lift in Shanklin you would have seen a nice beach and the derelict building you were talking about.

I grew up on the island in the 70s and 80s and moved away as quickly as I could. It's ideal for bringing up kids (or was), but there is no work anymore. All the decent places have shut and moved to better countries (cheaper). The population of the island was drastically dropping off, so local councils agreed to move people from cities down there to re populate (ask anyone about Wroxall, you have no idea how close you are with the hills have eyes remark). This aided the downhill decline from what I've been told by family that still live there. To be honest, I put the blame for the demise of that stunning place, firmly on the shoulders of Whightlink and Red Funnel ferries. House prices are cheap because you need a mortgage for travel if you work on the mainland. I used to commute to London every day for work and it's just not sustainable. I feel so sorry for the island and the inhabitants that remember it as I do back when it was amazing. Long live Zanies. Oh and Sandown really died when they shut Col Bogeys. That was the end of its nightlife and eventually all of its life.

You’d do well to highlight the absolute chasm between the life expectancy and poverty of areas in Ryde and say, Seaview or Bembridge which are just 3-4 miles apart. It’s not about which town is the biggest turd, but which towns have the biggest contrast. Context in place is everything.