Is our town a shithole..

@PandoraSocks etc is anyone that the council is paid to look after. It is a different story in Lincolnshire which is only 10 miles away from Peterborough. I know the ex mayor, believe me, it's all about the money the council can take short term. They don't even think about long term implications.

Re Reform, I don't think they can run the country hence the reason I didn't vote in the last election. But people read the headlines and get drawn in. I looked at their agenda before the election and decided there simply wasn't enough info. I don't know what their actual plan is.

Where I live, Dudley, the council do put money in from time to time.

They planted a load of trees in the local park a few weeks ago. Within 24 hours, the local dickhead had snapped all the saplings in two. When the council put bins in the park, they are set fire to.

Where i live, they're what I call the Brexit/Reform lot. Mostly white, often overweight, either just 'hanging around' with their partners in the town centre or being rude to staff and customers in shops, vaping, etc, don't seem to be doing anything...

...yet, all the while complaining about the hard-working foreigners doing the jobs they can't be bothered to do. They're Farage's scumbags. And the sad thing is, is that it's guaranteed that he'll sh*t on them from a height if they give him power.

@FroggletTowers Any indication this coincides with county lines reaching the area? Was really shocked to see what was going on in some of the areas I knew that had a rough past (port towns) but had been going in a good direction until county lines hit.

@RedhairDL Labour did make a difference under Blair and Brown to everyone's living standards. Labour under Starmer will do the same. Meanwhile in Reform led councils action is happening but probably not the sort of action Reform want.

www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/union-membership-increases-in-reformled-councils-b1231910.html

Op here In Scotland we have minimum pricing on our alcohol and yet still we have the same issues as you describe here. It's pretty dire across the whole of the UK.
Depressing eh

The Council I work for have said they are aware that towns in the borough have deteriorated due to council funding pressures meaning they are not keeping up with keeping areas clean or tidy or community safety initiatives etc. So that is likely part of it. General deterioration due to lack of council funding.

It pisses me off. Central government suppress council funding as an easy win as residents blame councils, not central government for deterioration in services.

Sounds like Gravesend, except that’s always been a shite hole

I would say the issue is successive useless governments and unqualified, even more useless politicians. Politicians who have in the past directed money away to their friends in big business…and a government now who is directing the money away to their friends in the business of net zero, war and rentals for new arrivals.

It’s very sad, the country is looking pretty unrecognisable, people are getting poorer (whilst being told we’ve got more money in our pockets) and many many people are giving up. They’ve lost hope. They just want to escape from their shitty lives, so unsurprising turn to drugs and alcohol. No point trying to be all subtle about it. And white working class boys…as a teacher you’ll probably know that they are the worst performing group at the moment, so what do people think will happen in their future?

Now as for Reform, they are doing well because they are not the Tories and they are not Labour, and people don’t trust either of those parties anymore. So whether they can make a difference or not is irrelevant. We already know Labour and the Conservatives won’t, that’s pretty much proven.

I think this deterioration of the country is set to continue sadly.

Go to Chester - horrible feel in the streets sometimes. It's always had a rough edge under the facade but it 100 times worse now. There are people there (the usual crowd I'm afraid - druggies, drinkers etc) that would steal the steam of your piss.

Yes, I thought this.

It needs the decent people to stand up for what's right, and not be afraid of speaking up and speaking out. It needs people to continue to stubbornly use their town centres and demonstrate what normal behaviour is. It needs talented and imaginative town councils and local authorities who attract investment and reward innovation. It needs a strong identity and culture and community events.

I live in a reasonably deprived Cornish town. I readily admit that it's a much nicer place than Derby for example. But we have some really proactive people here and there's a lot being done. There are problems with moany twats who just sit around slagging the place off. But we are managing to hold off the worst of what's being described on this thread.

You know rivers flow into the sea right?

Could it be down to homelessness? The homeless were found places to stay during the pandemic, so weren't visible, and rough sleepers are predominantly male.

They have to hang around the streets during the day because they often don't have anywhere else to go. Funding for projects for the homeless have been cut consistently for years now.

Unfortunately the council allowed too many HMOs and hotels housing boat people etc.

What is the etc. here?

What more can I say, apart from I fully understand you. And although I didn't vote in the last election, I can understand why people are voting Reform. It is about time the people were listened to

How is Reform proposing to solve all these deep rooted issues?

It does sound depressing op. It isn't so bad here but I have noticed an uptick in crime, car theft and mugging etc, litter, dog poop lately, all of which is also bad.

How do you propose to sell your house then with this attitude? Are you going to lie about the area?

Yes a town near me is just like this. There is a water feature that men sit and drink by all day. The town is failing and the council are blaming it on negative press, ignoring the reality that town is intimidating.
There is a big ‘improvement’ scheme going on, for outdoor events and foots trucks etc. the reality is the new open area will just be more of the same. And the council can’t ban town centre drinking as it ruins these plans.
Someone mentioned York and I’m there regularly. I think towns like that with large numbers of tourists/out of town shoppers will always buck the trend and not representative of what’s going on. Although my friend works there and said the amount of money people spend in town is seriously down.

Do you call the police when you see this ?
can you volunteer for or set up a centre for mentally unwell alcoholic so they get off the street

New York mayor years ago set up wet rooms all across new youk so alcoholics had a space to go and drink and get off the street sponsored by alcohol companies if I remember correctly ! ( the thinking that drinking their product on the street was bad branding so lure them away from public view) It was to improve the look of the city so no one saw drunks and homeless

If it's Nottingham, then yes it is a shithole and I used to think it was quite nice in the 1990s.

Sounds like Bedford. I don't live there any more but family do.

I live near a major town (population 230,000)which I never shop in. When I was a teenager it had three department stores and a good selection of shops. It now has lots of charity shops, barbers, phone shops and absolutely nothing else. It's pretty filthy and there are lots of drunks and alleys used for toilets. Developers are building £600k+ houses and the only shops are on out of town retail parks. My adult DC won't let me visit the town centre on my own incase I get mugged. I went to a revamped marks and spencer food hall on Sunday and it was packed. That shop is on an out of town clean bright development. Tbh I'm ashamed that it looks like it does. It's not a poor town (average wage £40k) and is surrounded by well healed villages but it is a sh*thole. It made the chancellors list.

I think this is a very significant factor. The problem existed before, but it tended to be out of sight to most of us because these men spent hours in rough, cheap pubs.

Pubs are very expensive / or are closing / or are wanting better class of customer for their gentrified gastro pub , so street drinking cheaper
culturally Middle Eastern men drink with men women are at home with kids

i haven't noticed this particularly in NE London but I have noticed a sharp up turn in graffiti and kids getting mugged for phones and car break in are frequent

police do not have the recourses to deal with this low level unpleasantness and the nhs does not have the recourses to help alcoholics like they used to
charitable organisations for mental health and addiction are struggling to survive as donations are down due to cost of living

shops are closing due to raising cost and the death of the high street with it jobs

and so it goes on, no money for regeneration