Five towns in our picturesque county of Hampshire have been nominated for the title of worst town in Britain on a cyberspace magazine.

Website www.idler.co.uk has asked people to nominate the worst towns in Britain and the information is being compiled for a book of the top 50 worst towns which will be published in October.

Among our treasured towns that received scathing criticism is the quaint Alresford, near Winchester, which is a village, strictly speaking.

About Alresford it reads: "Tedium lurks around every corner in this rural backwater. One tea room, a clock shop that opens once a week and a park bench outside the chemist on the high street is about all it has to offer. It's purgatory with hanging baskets."

Andrew Merry, chairman of Alresford Chamber of Commerce strongly disagrees with the comments.

He said: "Much of Alresford's initial charm is with its architecture and its quiet tranquillity. We also have many specialised shops and a gallery.

"The Watercress line is world-famous - its website gets hits from all over the world and we get visitors from as far as Japan. You could say that we are a cosmopolitan town.

"It certainly sounds like the person who made the comments has never visited us."

Eastleigh is simply described as being 'More of a place between other places than a town."

Of the capital of Wessex, Winchester, it says: "Any character disappeared from the town centre when the high street received the chain store make-over, house prices are exorbitant and cater exclusively for well-heeled London-employed family-builders seeking old England, and the countryside has been hewn by Maggie's M3 legacy. It's the middle-class complacency, nay arrogance that defines the place."

Winchester MP Mark Oaten retaliated by saying: "I agree that house prices are high and young people can't afford to live here but Winchester is a radical city.

"If the editors of the magazine looked beyond its leafy image and talked to the real people of the city, they would realise that it isn't a stuffy, conservative place."

Even the market town of Ringwood did not escape a slating. "Popularly known as 'Ringworm', Ringwood is one of those pointless Hampshire towns that is populated either with people who are sick of cities and want to be closer to the countryside, or people who never have, and never will leave."

Town mayor Cllr Danny Cracknell was flabbergasted. He said: "Ringwood still has something that makes it unique and that's a wonderful community spirit.

"In my opinion it is the best town in the New Forest district and it's one of the friendliest places in the country."

Finally Basingstoke received strong criticism for being "a town-planning travesty".

The comment goes on to say:

"Over-centralised in the extreme, you cannot so much as stroll to a local newsagents for a paper because the only shops are in the sprawling shopping centre, which must be accessed by road (pavements were not included in the grand scheme)."

Brian Gurden, leader of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, was furious when he heard the comments made on the Idler website.

He stated: "This person has obviously not been to Basingstoke in years, and I sincerely hope they don't bother to come here in the future.

"People in Basingstoke are more interested in the facilities which are second to none of any town in the south-east.

"This is nothing but a provocative tissue of inaccurate garbage."

Luckily Southampton does not feature on the scathing website.

But current front runners to win the title of the worst town in Britain are Hull and unsurprisingly, neighbouring Portsmouth.

This was one comment about Southampton's arch-rival: "The town during the day is the usual non-stop stream of half-dead pensioners, teenage mums and shell-suit bedecked amoebic life forms.

"On the architecture front, Portsmouth boasts many triumphs of the idiocy of the human spirit. The Tricorn, a shopping centre of sorts, comes in for special mention here,

being surely the ugliest concrete monstrosity on the face of the earth. Even the locals have been campaigning for years to have it torn down (although there are those who want it listed and preserved - this would only happen in Portsmouth)."

Another scathing comment on the website says that Portsmouth "is cursed with a syndrome that anyone who lives there for long enough will never succeed in life".

If you would like to defend one of the towns mentioned, or put in your vote for Portsmouth to win the title of worst town in Britain, log onto the site: www.idler.co.uk