Lewis Hamilton criticised for calling hometown Stevenage a slum

Lewis Hamilton and Sharon Taylor

Stevenage Borough Council leader Sharon Taylor has led the criticism of Lewis Hamilton after the five-time Formula 1 champion referred to his hometown as "the slums" during Sunday's BBC Sports Personality of the Year show.

The Mercedes driver told presenter Gabby Logan: "It's been a really long journey, a dream for us all, as a family, to do something different, to get out of the slums. Well, we would say it's not the slums, but just come out from somewhere and do something. We all set our goals very high but we did it as a team."

The complaints from the offended people of Stevenage did not take long to surface on social media. Taylor, who has been given an OBE for her work in local government, tweeted: "Disappointing that ??@LewisHamilton?? chose to use this event to make negative comments about his home town. Nowhere is perfect but we'll go high & say we are #ProudofStevenage."

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