Bad time going round the East Central area (5)
I believe the answer is:
decay
'area' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'bad time going round the east central' is the wordplay.
'bad time' becomes 'day' (day is a kind of time. I am not sure about the 'bad' bit.).
'going round' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters go around others).
'the east' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'central' becomes 'c' (common abbreviation in various government acronyms).
'e'+'c'='ec'
'day' enclosing 'ec' is 'DECAY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for decay that I've seen before include "Go bad" , "Briefly fashionable" , "Putrefaction" , "Putrefy" , "Decompose or fall into ruin" .)