The little town that was ‘1 of UK’s worst’ where crime has stopped | UK | News

A small suburban town once voted one of the “worst” places to live in the UK is becoming “middle class”, with thousands of new homes to be built and an 82% drop in anti-social behavior in just eight months. Corby, in Northamptonshire, was once a small village in the early 20th century until it was transformed by the arrival of Glasgow-based steel firm Stewarts and Lloyds in 1932, and its population skyrocketed from 1,500 to 18,000 in just two decades.

The arrival of large numbers of Glasgow steelworkers to work on the huge industrial site has led to this part of central England being dubbed “Little Scotland”. But disaster struck in 1979 when the factory suddenly closed, leaving 10,000 people unemployed and instantly giving the area an unemployment rate of 30%, the highest unemployment rate in the UK. The industrial legacy brought health problems, with suspicions that toxic waste buried after being cleared from the former factory site could cause birth defects in children born in the 1980s.

For nearly 40 years Corby has been struggling to emerge from the shadow of industrial decline, and the dreary 1960s brutalist architecture in the town center and lack of prospects for local residents mean the area regularly features in the top 10 lists of the “worst” places to live in the UK.

iLiveHere’s latest survey in 2022 placed the town of Northampton seventh nationally for the scariest places to call home. During our visit on a freezing Wednesday last week, gray clouds and new city public housing built decades ago for steelworkers gave the town a foreboding feeling.

But despite the visible legacy of the dismantled industrial past, the city center remained relatively lively. The recently refurbished Willow Place shopping center featured high street names such as H&M, Primark and TK Maxx, as well as cafes and a gym. Outside the more polished areas of the regenerated parts of the city centre, there were also a surprising number of high street banks; this has now become a rare sight even in the wealthiest towns.

Corby is just an hour’s journey from London and many areas of the city have seen a housing development boom; More than 5,000 homes will be built in the next few years on a massive 900-acre site to the east. The local authority also received £19.9 million through the Council Fund in June 2021 for various construction projects, including a new sixth form college.

A semi-detached family home in Corby is worth around £225,000, three times cheaper than London, making the area an attractive place to live for suburban families who cannot afford property prices in the capital. However, the appeal of a cheaper area to find a home outside the South East premium area is also driving up local prices; Corby and surrounding areas are seeing a massive 33% increase in sales values ​​since 2019.

And as we walked through the town’s streets, we got the sense that a past of industrial decline was colliding with a safer future.

As in many English towns today, there were small groups of people wandering around who were homeless or had substance abuse problems, but there were also people who looked like they were going to work or to the gym or carrying shopping bags.

Ken Chapanduka, 48, originally from Zimbabwe, has opened Corby Quality Butchers, the first butcher in the city center for many years.

He told the Daily Express: “I think Corby is changing, there are new estates bringing in more middle class people, people are coming from London and there is a mix of people living here now… I think they need to do the ‘dreadful towns’ study again and see where we stand at the moment.

“We are local and noticed there were no butchers in Corby town centre. People were shopping at the supermarket so we decided to open one for them.

“The Corby community has made us feel welcome, there will be queues forming in store next summer.”

Mr Chapanduka’s shop received a large number of customers in just the 20 minutes we were there and he explained that he had brought a new taste sensation to the city in the form of boerewors sausages from Zimbabwe. Traditional meat snacks include beef, pork, goat meat and spices. The popularity of Mr Chapanduka’s African-themed treats may be down to the more cosmopolitan palates of people moving to the area from London.

Market trader Barry Beckett runs the stall of Elliott’s Fruit and Veg, which has been operating in Corby for 35 years. He acknowledged the town had a “horrible” reputation and added: “This town is our toughest market and we do Daventry, Bedford, Rugby too.

“But at this time of year, there are only two paydays before Christmas, and people are paying attention to their bills as well as their money, checking to see if they have three children, for example.”

Speaking about the region’s economic prospects and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget on November 26, Mr Beckett said all politicians “say something but then change their minds”, adding: “We need someone like Trump to be in charge and he would have had it all figured out by now.”

One of Corby’s key challenges was to provide good opportunities for the younger generation and steer them away from a life of crime. According to the CrimeRate website, the per capita crime rate in Corby is 65% higher than the whole of Northamptonshire.

But following a spike in 2024, Northamptonshire Police are investigating the causes of anti-social behavior (ASB) and in the last eight months police told the Daily Express that youth-related ASB has fallen by 82.5% under Operation Alien.

Neighborhood Policing Inspector Matt Rock said the operation was in response to reports that young people were “acting anti-social behaviour, causing criminal damage and escalating violent crime in the town centre”.

He added: “The whole team came together to patrol the town centre, organize action days, provide reassurance, hold monthly meetings with town center staff and partner agencies, and apply for funding to support a local charity which suffered losses worth £1,000.

“The team’s work has seen large numbers of offenders convicted and sanctioned, referrals to the Youth Offending Service, and the latest published figures indicate an 82.5% reduction in youth-related ASB since February 2025.”

UK Local Reform Council member Elizabeth Wright, Executive Member for Children, Education and Families, said Corby had “persistent high levels of deprivation linked to the decline of our steel industry, underemployment, limited mental health services and still too few engaging activities for young people”.

He added: “If it is about youth participation, then some of these issues are rooted in the loss of the steel industry and the impact that has had on self-identity, even 40 years later.

“They are searching for a cultural identity in an unstable and uncertain world, and just like we were when we were their age, they want to be heard and known, but they are afraid to be responsible and accountable for the very things they want.

“Ultimately, tackling antisocial behavior in Corby means playing the long-term game: offering young people a real stake in their town, practical outlets for their energy and clear consequences where those outlets are misused.”