The Carbuncle Awards 2025

The ills of our built environment have been many decades in the making and their solutions can unfortunately take many more decades to materialise. There are no quick fixes for urban design. That is why the Carbuncle Awards have returned after a decade-long hiatus to take stock of past winners and reassess other buildings and places for which recent years have not been kind.

The strength of the Carbuncle Awards was always their ability to focus myriad and complex issues into a short, sharp clarion call that could cut through decades of managed decline and pontification to awaken underperforming places from their slumber. The experience of past winners such as John o'Groats & Cumbernauld illustrates well the value of shock therapy for ending procrastination and delivering lasting change.

Far from being a vehicle for mockery, the awards have always been positioned as a constructive tool.  Where others see despair we see untapped potential. Neither negativity nor positivity can exist in a vacuum and only by understanding our failures can we change for the better. If we fail to acknowledge the mistakes of the past then we are doomed to repeat them.

The Carbuncle Awards have been on hiatus since 2015, since which lasting societal and political change has taken place - driven by health concerns, economic interests and technological development. In such an environment the need for the awards has only increased as we grapple with empty High Street's, offices and the zero carbon agenda. The awards were never an endpoint but a starting point and have returned more potent than ever.

A day is a long time in politics but a decade is a short time in town planning!