YouTube star visits Birmingham’s Soho Road and labels it England’s ‘worst street’ in viral video

A video of a YouTube vlogger’s visit to Birmingham’s Soho Road has gone viral. 

Bald and Bankrupt is a travel vlog YouTube channel run by Benjamin Rich. The channel has 4 million subscribers and 620 million views. The vlogger is well known for his videos in which he visits post-soviet states and poverty-stricken areas. 

In a new episode, Rich travels to some of the UK’s biggest cities and areas of them that have become run-down in recent years. He says: “We’ve chosen some places that don’t have the best reputation.” He called the video: 'Offered Business On England's Worst Street'.

The video comes as the city council grapples with its financial crisis, as the people of Birmingham are set to be affected by the £300 million worth of cuts to public services over the next couple of years.

After filming trips to Plymouth and Weston-Super-Mare, Rich travelled to Birmingham with a fellow vlogger after booking a hotel on the Soho Road in Handsworth. In the video, you can see the road is littered with fly-tipping. He notices some waste dumped on the side of the road, and says: “Don’t they collect rubbish in this city?”

He then comes across an abandoned car before finding the hotel. The vlogger takes a look in the garden of the hotel, where more rubbish can be seen dumped in an area of land behind the building. After going for a walk, he films a number of abandoned and derelict buildings in the area.

During the video, Rich speaks to two teenagers. When he asked them what they think of Soho Road, they said: “It’s nice, but sometimes it’s dangerous. There’s drunk people and stuff.”

When he asked if they had a ‘little gang’, one of the boys responded: “No we don’t have a gang, but we know how to keep people safe.” Rich then bumps into a woman on the road with a black eye, who tells him she was punched by a man. After asking if she was ok, Rich discussed with her what it was like living in the area, which she sarcastically said: “Beautiful.”

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She then asked him whether he wanted any “business” - with Rich asking what she meant by that. She replied: “jiggy jiggy”. Rich replied “No, I'm ok for jiggy jiggy today.”

After the woman walked on, Rich said to the camera: “Well, there you go, I was just asked if I wanted ‘jiggy jiggy' on Soho Road. I’m going to go back to the hotel, pack my bags and get out. This has been a little bit too much for me. The town, the street, has intimidated me.”