They've won a place in the dictionary and a Droitwich student has even written a university dissertation about them. It looks like chavs are taking over the county.

Emma Cullwick reports

CHAVS - the term given to describe Britain's youth tribe ridiculed for wearing Burberry baseball caps, white tracksuits and acres of 'bling' jewellery - has become so much a part of our culture that the word is now in the dictionary.

Droitwich university student Verity Jennings was so intrigued by them that she became the country's leading authority on chav culture after writing her dissertation on the very subject.

Now, according to website www.chavtowns.co.uk Worcestershire is riddled with chavs who are supposedly making our lives a misery.

The site allows ordinary residents to write in with their chav observations, and scores of entries have been made for Worcester, Malvern, Droitwich and Kidderminster.

The Faithful City's estates, such as Warndon and Brickfields, have been condemned as chav hot spots, and picturesque Malvern has been criticised for having an underground population of chavs who emerge at weekends.

Rapidly becoming the most vilified group in British society, chavs are lampooned by comedians, attacked by social commentators, portrayed by the media as loud, vulgar and abusive, and increasingly seen as a drain on the public finances.

Everyone from millionaire footballer Wayne Rooney and his girlfriend Colleen McLoughlin to the shoplifting single mother character Vicky Pollard, from BBC1's Little Britain, has been labelled a chav.

The Sun newspaper even ran a Proud to be a Chav campaign.

The news comes as no surprise to Miss Jennings, aged 22, of Arkle Road, who said: "When I was selecting my dissertation subject, it was October or November 2004 and there was an explosion of stories about chavs.

"I just wanted to understand the whole culture of it. I think chavs have been around for a long time, but known by different regional names." But Worcestershire County Council's tourism unit was quick to defend the county and hoped the comments on the website would not deter people from being proud of where they live.

"Worcestershire is an extremely popular destination for visitors. We get 12 million visitors to the county every year and 80 per cent of these people decide to come back," said a spokeswoman. "The visitors who do come here are high earners, mostly over 45 years old. In a recent survey we asked visitors what they liked about Worcestershire and it was the countryside, the beautiful and elegant surrounding and also because it was so English."

"Worcester has fabulous heritage, Malvern the beautiful countryside, Kidderminster has new shopping developments and big attractions nearby and Droitwich is a pretty black-and-white town that is known around the world for its saline spa. It is a shame people are not more positive about where they live.

WHAT THE WEBSITE SAID ABOUT CHAVS IN WORCESTERSHIRE'S TOWNS

WORCESTER

Welcome to Worcester, the ancient chav capital of the chav-infested West Midlands.

From the derelict and depressing Angel Place in the centre of town, to the sprawling chav estates of Warndon, Brickfields, Ronkswood and Dines Green, this once proud old city now stands as a monument to all that Chav culture embraces.

A visitor arriving at Worcester's Foregate Street railway station, and heading off in search of cultural stimulation would soon be in no doubt that this city is now a wilderness of drab mediocrity.

During the evenings and weekends the hordes of Worcester chavs and chavettes will congregate around takeaways stuffing their spotty faces to their heart's content, leaving behind them a mass of rubbish for the pigeons and rats to gorge on. Chav boozers proliferate in Worcester town centre, piling out at midnight, fighting and spewing their way down New Street towards the taxi rank.

MALVERN

Malvern should be cobbled streets, horses and families dressed up in their finery off to church on a Sunday.

But it is stuffed to bursting point with go-faster-striped, rat-faced chavs toting a plastic bag full of 22p-a-can lager and "chuddy" chewing gum. You wouldn't even know that Malvern had a chav population larger than a Roman army if you naively went on your way and ignored the reek of hair-spray-plastered chavettes outside toy shops. The upwardly-sloping main street is too much for the frizzy-haired truants, though, so they never quite get to see the true wonders of the Malvern Hills.

It's weekends when the chavs truly come alive. They pack up for a day out, then they're off, at a very slow pace, pushing the Fiesta all the way into Malvern Link where they stop to load up with crisps, fizzy drinks and the cheapest fags on the market.

KIDDERMINSTER:

In my many years of working around the country I have never encountered somewhere so chaved-up as Kidderminster.

Unfortunately, I happen to work in a building above the local social so a chav is never far away.

The police are called at least once a week when a chav is refused their Giro and starts to smash the place up.

Chavs can be found throughout the town with hotspots at Weaver's Wharf, Bull Ring and Vicar Street.

The chav population is increasing exponentially (some parts of Kidderminster can't receive a TV signal) and a healthy grouping of silver (middle-aged) chavs are present in the locality.

DROITWICH:

As the saying goes, you are never more than six metres away from a chav, and this is true of Droitwich. The town centre is small. The chav to human ratio is 10:1 around this area. Lowered Novas cruise around the narrow streets at 4mph blasting out the latest song with more bass than a fish farm.

Westlands is the chav capital of Droitwich - otherwise known as Wastelands. Having worked in Droitwich, I have encountered people with verbal skills that a two-year-old would put to shame. Co-workers took 10 breaks a day "avin' a fahg innit". During the lunch break the chavs would shun Dostoyevsky for The Daily Star as reading material, more cultured chavs plump for The Sun.

What do you think? Write to the Worcester News with your views at Hylton Road, Berrows House, Worcester, WR2 5JX or e-mail us at wenletters@thisis worcester.co.uk.