Durham County Council has hit back after a travel blogger labelled one of the county's towns "as bad as a third world country".
Matt Hughes spent £15,000 visiting 312 towns and cities across Great Britain in six months and later revealed the most "run-down" places he stayed.
He set off from his childhood home on the Isle of Sheppey last May, travelling through County Durham, as far as Inverness, before heading back south to Kent, where he arrived last month.
The 43-year-old did the entire journey by public transport, staying at budget hotels along the way.
Matt, who set off after returning home from a year travelling Latin America, documented the mammoth trip on social media.
His plan was to "find out the reality" behind "worst town" headlines and share it on his YouTube channel The Absolute Ranker.
The former train conductor and flight attendant said he was shocked by the level of deprivation in North East England.
He said the County Durham towns of Horden and Peterlee were among the poorest places he had seen, not just in Britain - but in the world.
Matt said: "I knew that they’d been messed up by the closing down of the mines but I didn’t realise the extent of it.
"There are houses going for five grand.
"Until you go there you don’t realise how bad it is.
"I’ve been to places like Guatemala which are third world and Horden is on the same level."
But Mark Stamper, Durham County Council’s head of growth and partnership, said: “While the video content has clearly been presented in a way that prioritises shock value to drive engagement, we nonetheless understand that many towns are in need of regeneration and could benefit from funding and improvements."
The council pointed towards the Towns and Villages programme, Targeted Business Improvement Scheme and Pride in Place funding which it says will all improve Horden.
Mr Stamper added: “Despite challenges we face, there is still ambition within the council and communities to bring improvements to these areas and we will continue to work closely with government and residents to do as much as we can."
Matt said that down-at-heel towns could be found further south too, adding that some coastal spots in the South West showed similar signs of decay.
He said: "You think of Cornwall as this really beautiful place with beaches but there are some really run-down places, like Penzance.
"Some places in the south are on a par pretty much with the bad towns in the north of England.
"Torquay was as bad as Blackpool and Blackpool has the reputation. Torquay doesn’t.
"That was an eye opener."
Meanwhile, he found parts of the capital often considered violent to be much safer than expected.
He said: "You hear London has all these no go zones and places people should never go.
"When I was a kid, parts were really scary.
"I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
"Brixton and Peckham spring to mind.
"They’ve got a really bad reputation and now they’re really gentrified."
Good experiences in notoriously rough parts of Scotland's biggest city also surprised him for the better.
He added: "I’d been to Glasgow quite a few times before, but when you go somewhere as a tourist, you only see the nice bits.
"You don’t go to Possilpark as a tourist.
"From what I had heard I was fearing the worst.
"I was wondering if they’d hear my accent and get aggressive.
"I knew people were friendly but everyone was lovely, even in places that have got a reputation."
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He said Worcester and Lincoln were England's most underrated places, praising their architecture and cultural offerings.
Dundee, Aberdeen and Swansea are also among the most overlooked destinations, he added.
And although he considers Liverpool and Newcastle the two friendliest cities he visited, he believes southerners can be just as sociable as northerners.
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