Whaddon, Cheltenham
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Whaddon is an area in the North Eastern part of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Whaddon Road, the home of Cheltenham Town Football Club (currently playing in the English Football League Division 2) is situated here.
Clyde Crescent (a large circular park) can be deemed as constituting its geographical centre and is the focus of many community based activities, particularly during the summer. Another centre of community activity are Parklands Community Centre.
Much of Whaddons housing affords views of the nearby escarpment that surrounds this part of Cheltenham, part of which has been designated by the Countryside Agency as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty or AONB.
A majority of Whaddons housing is compiled of terrace housing built by the council. This is one of the reasons Whaddon has such a high rate of working class residences. It has a well known reputation in Cheltenham as being a council estate. Crime is prominent in the council estate areas of Cheltenham. For example Whaddon has up to 3 times more crimes monthly than Charlton Kings (a nearby mainly privately housed area). And as Charlton kings crimes are mostly anti-social behaviour most of Whaddons crimes are such things as robbery, burglary and violence. Robbery, burglary and violence happen an average of 5 times more often than in Charlton kings.
Like many other majority council estates in Cheltenham (and across the UK), Whaddon residences often are proud of their area and often times council estate residences will get into fights or fueds with other council estate areas. Such is the case between Whaddon and Hesters way.
Whaddon could be said to have a distinct cultural identity within Cheltenham, being (along with Hester's Way, Wymans Brook and St. Paul's) a predominantly working class area within a town which has a national reputation for being 'affluent' or even 'posh'. According to local community groups, many Whaddon residents say that they enjoy living in Whaddon because there remains a strong sense of community in the area, absent from much of the rest of the town. However, Whaddon also carries a certain amount of notoriety amongst Cheltenham's residents as a 'problem area' with higher than usual incidents of crime and anti-social behaviour.
51°54′19″N 2°3′15″W / 51.90528°N 2.05417°W
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