Is our town a shithole..

I live in a large north western town and it’s not what I see. I would probably describe the town centre as rough but there aren’t massive groups of men drinking. Few homeless people knocking around. The local parks and wetland areas are still lovely places to take the kids for a walk. It’s definitely not something I’ve come across. Neither were I’m from in the midlands. I’m surprised this is so widespread

This describes a lot of places I’ve visited recently, including Leamington Spa and Stratford upon Avon, Bath too,

Won’t the new policy see it happen? I know you’re not asking for the policy don’t worry. I just find it really strange.

Tent cities will change the landscape even more.

ETA just saw your edit.

I can’t imagine anyone wanting that.

Do we get a say though..

Surely no one wants that replicated here. Seems an odd way to go.

When I was a kid, Dudley was a lovely place to go. Merry Hell killed it!

Same in my town in North Wales (not rhyl).

Shops all closed down.. tons of vape shops and "Turkish Barber" money laundering shops. Even the charity shops and Poundland are closing down now

We've never really had an immigration problem here until a couple of years ago.. I've noticed loads more creepy middle eastern men just lurking around doing nothing. There's been reports on our local facebook group that they like to follow school girls home and ask them for their instagram/snapchat accounts.

Loads of alcoholics and people drinking in the street. Most of them are banned from Wetherspoons and the normal pubs are £7 a pint so i can't blame them. 😁

We have the same problem without the booze, They smoke instead and come from abroad via the local hotels.

They’re called Tent Cities in America. Quite a lot of them.

I don’t know how tent pitching won’t just make this all
worse.

Sounds like the town we live in! It was a wonderful place to be raised in, but is grim now. We are hoping to move next year to a quieter village nearby.
Whereabouts are you? We live in West Sussex.

Expect it to get worse now pitching a tent to live in has been legalised. Try that on College Green, bet it's still illegal there.
So tents on Park Lane now that can stay. Gave them an inch and plastic structures will be next followed by wooden. How long before they claim the land and build a house on it?
Far fetched?

Yes I can imagine.
Thinking about it now, the occasions where I decided to travel by train ( on a race day) were as equally scary!

Made worse by "Problem" people being bussed in from other areas, such as newly released prisoners. The old boarding houses were no longer needed so councils thought it would be good to "encourage" people to come and live in them once converted to bed-sits, etc. Trouble was there was no additional police or council resources put in place to deal with the almost inevitable crime and anti-social behaviour, made worse by these run down seaside resorts not having much in the way of employment opportunities. A classic case of how NOT to re-populate a run down area!

Race days are grim. Went to Chester in the morning for wedding dress appointments. People all dressed up for the races. We shopped, stopped for lunch, then more appointments. Finally found the dress. When we finally emerged I couldn't believe the state of the race goers, women of all ages stumbling drunk, a punch up going on between a group of men. Clothes ruined, drunks passed out. Haven't been back since.

In my area which has the same social issues, there are far, far too many HMOs. Most of these HMOs are designated for males who are out of prison, addicts or otherwise deprived. Some HMOs are not but are more likely to house single men (or men whose on/off partners live with children in houses or flats).
This partly explains why a significant number of mostly men congregate out of doors. The rooms they ‘live’ in are like boxes with a shower in the corner. And to add another layer of depression, it costs almost the same amount to live in one of these shoe boxes sharing a kitchen and garden with dysfunctional people, as it costed to rent an entire house on the same street only a few years ago. Everyone is priced out of decent living conditions, even working families. Life is dreary and hopeless for so many now and if my circumstances were like that, I’d probably turn to drink and drugs and take to hanging round the city centre!

I live in a seaside town and, believe me, there are some very nice river walks here. Rivers do lead to the sea, after all...

Sounds like Stirling

They became like that when people no longer had to sign on for their dole. I remember it well as there was a large exodus to Torquay.
Money appears in bank account, buy drugs and drink, lounge around all day. Back then there weren't the current rules of having to look for a job. They find ways around that anyway.

That is how Torquay and many other coastal towns, turned from being lovely places to visit, to drunks falling around and needles in the sand.

Our town was a shithole but in the past year or so we've had a ton of immigration into the local area mostly from Asia and Africa. I guess cause it is cheap to live here. Since that happened the place is perking up a bit. Immigrants are opening new businesses shops and restaurants. We now have fresh grocery store in town selling more exotic items, the options for fruit and veg has even increased in the local supermarkets. Some of the new restaurants are really top notch. It reminds me a bit of when I lived in South London as a student years ago.

Its the same where I live, it dived downhill during covid and never recovered. Its really depressing. Groups of teenagers arsing around causing trouble, police are seemingly afraid of them. They pick especially on delivery cyclists who are trying to earn honest money, unlike them who will never earn their own money during their lifetimes.

Yes, very common in lots of towns these days and it's getting worse. I don't go into our closest "Big" town anymore as there's a awful "vibe" about the place, with far too many small groups of men hanging around looking very sinister, then small gangs of teens causing trouble on e-bikes/e-scooters, etc, and litter/dog shit everywhere. I'm getting more and more stuff ordered online for home delivery and have already moved dentists and opticians as they were both on the "High Street" which no longer feels safe, so I've changed to different places on the outskirts.

It's gotten like this on the town next to me (not the same as yours as there is no river bridge) Every day there are men in the town centre and park drunk or on drugs. There are people having mental health breakdowns wondering around shouting strange things. This has been since covid too and we've also had a lot of shop/pub/restaurant closures. I do think it must be linked, the lockdowns effecting mental health and leading to job losses.

A lot of the towns where you get trouble and behaviour like you've described are the ones where you've got a lot of poverty and a lot of affluent commuters on the leafy outskirts and villages, and nothing in between. People grow up, go to uni, don't come back. Or they come back years later with family until leafy outskirts new builds etc and commute to work.
That's essentially my home town now. It's in the north. Football club just promoted to premiership again.
Charities scratch the surface of the issues with food banks etc but the problems have been worsening for about 15 years since austerity, budget cuts, benefit sanctions came in.
That pattern is repeated in a lot of towns and it really is true when you look at them that Britain is broken. I have no idea how it's going to be resolved.

The putting a bed in the underpass, pretty entitled.