TWO writers who put together a book of Crap Towns have admitted that Basingstoke is not as bad as it has been painted.

Sam Jordison and Dan Kieran, of The Idler magazine, visited the town they had labelled Britain's ninth worst after The Gazette - which recently launched its Basingstoke -A Place To Be Proud Of campaign - challenged them to come and see the place for themselves.

After being greeted by Gazette editor Mark Jones, the pair were taken to the Civic Offices where they were treated to tea and a few of the updated facts about Basingstoke by borough mayor Gerry Traynor, council leader Cllr Rob Donnelly and Jane Stewart, marketing manager for the Festival Place shopping complex.

The mayor and council leader told the two authors how the town had been transformed in the past 10 years. Dan, in particular, took the chance to give Cllr Donnelly a grilling about the town.

Not one to be daunted by tough questions from a journalist, Cllr Donnelly stuck up valiantly for the town, telling Dan all about its plus points. Dan looked suitably impressed by the long list of leisure facilities.

The authors then went on a tour which took in Festival Place where the mayor and Cllr Donnelly were greeted by three teenagers complaining about how bad the town is! Dan and Sam were obviously delighted by this turn of events and even tried to sell a copy of their book to the disaffected youngsters.

However, undeterred, after chatting with the touring party for 10 minutes, the three teenagers admitted that the town wasn't nearly as bad as they had made out.

They were adamant that Basingstoke would have romped home at the top of the Crap Towns list 10 years ago, but said it now deserved to be further down the league table.

By this stage Sam and Dan were clearly warming to the town and especially the people.

In fact, Sam admitted the reason the town was so high in the list was down to the residents - and he meant it as a compliment!

He said: "It wasn't at all scientific when we were putting the book together. We were going to just count the number of nominations we were getting, but as it took off there were too many for us to read them all.

"So basically it ended up that if there was a piece we really liked it helped push the town up the list.

"I'm afraid Basingstoke suffered because the people wrote some really funny things that we liked."

While he's no fan of shopping centres, Dan admitted that Festival Place was a vast improvement on what had gone before and both he and Sam were impressed with the Eastrop fountains and the town centre cycleways.

They also said they had been impressed by the town's mayor and borough leader.

Sam and Dan believe it is people who really make a town crap and they say there is hope for Basingstoke if they ever rewrite the list.

Sam said: "What we really want to see in a good town is a bit of hope and spirit where the local people are sticking up for themselves. A place where there actually is a community spirit."