To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

We live in the village my husband grew up in and an incredibly/idyllic rural part of the country... For years my children could go to the parks, the beaches, out to ride their bikes by themselves. They're in there teens now and it's no longer safe, unless they're with an adult. We have gangs of teenagers roaming around at all hours. Throwing rocks at old peoples windows, smashing cars up, stealing from shops, vandalising the area etc... Things have changed so suddenly it's actually shocking.

@AbstractThought The serious decline of my home town definitely started when the M&S closed down! As a coastal town, there were always problems before with substance abuse, poverty, mental health etc. but the loss of M&S triggered the total collapse of the high street. There's nothing but charity shops now.

My home town is like this. It's so depressing. The death of the high street really didn't help. The local authority don't try to get private landlords to look after their buildings (in fairness, I'm not too sure what their powers are in this regard). Once buildings become dangerous, they're put under a compulsory purchase order and knocked down. There are many empty plots in the town centre now.

Thats a fair summary.

Though i think employers would still pay the lowest wages they can get away with, regardless of UC.... or as my mum used to say "Employers would make you pay them to work if they could"

Employers have been paying shit wages long before income support was introduced after WW2 BUT it has got a lot worse in recent years.

Many people are working v hard to stay poor and after rent and bills, many people aren't really better off then if they were on benefits and getting help with these.

Business rates and car parking charges are killing town centres.

But the biggest issue is Austerity, the cuts in services destroyed the social fabric of the UK to a far greater extent than other European countries, who stopped it after 3 or 4 years and started off with better services.

This is why I moved to London, it never goes downhill like that. Every town I've ever lived in before (lived everywhere) has never fully recovered.

The sheer volume of people in London to pay council tax means services are so much better.

Just as an example I've got an online NHS doctor - there are still appointments available for tomorrow (Sunday!)

Interesting. In the 90s when a place was hollowed out it was mainly bookies , off licences and charity shops that sprung up.

I work in this area and it’s not nonsense. You can’t force treatment on people - all you can do is offer it. It is offered, they accept and don’t turn up, or they refuse. Do you work in this area?

You really agree that "money is being ploughed into them"? It's nonsense. Since the Conservatives gained power 14 years ago funding for services that would help them have been savagely cut.

It's bizarre that so many are discussing this with no context - not acknowledging, or are ignorant of, how and why this has happened. Behind the banal platitudes, the Conservative Party has been in the grip of an extremist economic ideology that will only ever benefit their already wealthy friends and family.

We luve in a holiday area on the SC .town centre has gone downhill.lots of homeless people, went to town .two were having a fight very scary 😨. M and S closed ,nothing in its place . Seems a national problem

Agree.

It's never been this bad since I was an adult and I'm 50.
The Tories have stripped out assets and made themselves and their millionaire mates money.
In front of our eyes they have demonised the poor and made the wealthy have more money.
Only a fool or a selfish well off person would vote for them again.

I just want to go outside and see normal people again. Everyone seems so crazy now. I worry about how many animals and wildlife are suffering at the hands of these out of control humans.

This ^

Meanwhile:

Total wealth of UK billionaires

▪️2012: £212 Billion
▪️2022: £653 Billion

That's up 3-fold.

Turns out there's a name for what I'm seeing with the teeth - it's called Meth Mouth.

Sorry to harp on but just wonder if some posters are aware of what huge drug problems we have. It's a very specific thing and not about lack of NHS dentists (a separate problem).

The horror on the "needles in Gregg's" thread really surprised me. That was going on when I was a teen....probably longer but I only noticed as a teen.

Was 20+ years ago that my GP said they didn't like prescribing Valium because they had to risk assess who might be selling it to heroin addicts - if you can't get heroin, apparently Valium helps. It's only in later years they raised the addiction issue as a reason for refusal.

Btw my life is really not as depressing as it might look from my MN posts 😳😂

Cumulative, austerity- biggest, Brexit and covid

Well i doubt the millions sitting on NHS waiting lists waiting for hip and knee replacements are able to wander up and down pedestrianized high streets. Someone im close to has been waiting five years for a knee replacement and hasnt been into his local town centre for years, Cant park Cant get a blue badge because despite the long wait the situation is seen as temporary

This is the main reason we moved out of a large town to somewhere rural. We only moved about 15 miles away, but when we drive back through, there are huge differences - and it’s heartbreaking to witness.

We moved in 2018 and in that space of time, there are stabbings, a massive rise in homelessness, high street break ins, and even gun crime. (Home Counties). I’m so glad we now live somewhere that is essentially crime free and safe for our children to grow up.

^ Yep, this sums most of it up.

Oh, and no NHS dentists anymore (and no dentists for a lot of people). That could partly explain the teeth issue, as well as the fact that, if you're in a bad life situation and maybe can't get healthy food, brushing your teeth may not be a priority.

John Boughton (author of Municipal Dreams The Rise and Fall of Council Housing) on the welfarisation of council housing.

//www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-rise-and-fall-of-council-housing-56139

In the 1980s, residualisation may have been a partly unintended consequence of housing policies pursued with varying ideological intent

Since 2010, and more so since the return of single-party Conservative government in 2015, we’ve seen something further: welfarisation – ‘a conception of social housing as a very small, highly residualised sector catering only for the very poorest, and those with additional social “vulnerabilities”, on a short-term “ambulance” basis

YANBU OP.

@taxguru’s posts in particular struck a chord with me. Anti-car councils, of which there are sadly many, have been responsible for the death of many town centres. I think this business of new housing developments being required to have so many set aside for social housing hasn’t helped. From what I’ve seen even in pretty respectable villages the people who have moved into the social housing are often troublesome and troubled.

The fact astronomically high rates are charged seems to go in hand with the anti-car councils. I lived in a coastal town that had a reputation for being a bit rough back in the day though it depended which parts you lived and visited. A man we knew was stabbed to death walking through a park in the 90s near the town centre but he had some enemies.

The town centre was a decent place to shop until the 90s. It even had an independent family owned department store, which was great, a decent branch of Burton’s, shoe shops, jewellers, electronics stores. Now it’s like a lot of places - charity shops, fast food places, vape shops, barbers, salons, nail bars.
WH Smiths has recently left. I’m amazed Boots and Superdrug are still there. It lost New Look, Dorothy Perkins and Sports Direct all within a few months of each other and that was before Covid.

in short there’s bugger all to go there for really. Sadly the nearest retail parks aren’t up to much good either. You have to drive at least 15 minutes out of town to get to decent shops.

My (small) city isn't as bad as yours but there has been a significant decline in the past few years.

The police used to move homeless and drunk people on in the centre but now the homeless are actually living in shop doorways, often begging or accosting people.

At least two of the big hotels in the city are now being used for the homeless and refugees.

Loads of good shops have gone and are either empty or now vaping/betting shops.

The bus services are really shit but the council has almost doubled parking charges, further deterring people from going into the city centre.

Critical services have been cut (community meals for the elderly and vulnerable) but the council has an endless pot of money for new cycle lanes (many of which seem barely used).

Every newly tarmacked road is starting to go to pot(holes) after just a few months.

Roadworks everywhere all the time (often with no-one actually there working).

The police don't pick up the phones (to 111) or properly deal with crime and other complaints (not their fault - but it's just been cuts cuts cuts and services 're-focused').

There is a fairly huge and growing population of young people with on-going mental health problems who cannot work and hang around town the whole day long (this is not conjecture - I know these people and their situations).

It's sad and depressing for all involved.

Most of our nature areas and footpaths are destroyed by off road bikes now, the council won't even bother locking the gates that stopped vehicles gaining access. We have a small nature reserve that keeps getting set on fire. Benches in the area are chained together by their feet, it's just so depressing. No police presence at all. There's this feeling that no authority cares.
**
This makes me feel so sad.

The town I live in is a pretty Georgian riverside town and has been popular with tourists but over the years shops were closing and we seemed to have empty shops replaced with mostly charity shops and takeaways
many things have contributed, cost of living, online shopping, less provision to help those that need mental health services etc.
however there seems to have been a little bit of regeneration with some new bars and eating places opening making the place a bit more social again. Many surrounding towns though seem to be run down and have an air of neglect about them. Times have definitely changed and not necessarily for the better