To be finding London increasingly grubby?

[Notcontent]

Ok, this is not a London bashing thread. I actually love lots of things about living in London. And I am lucky enough to live in quite a nice area. BUT… I am not British so recently my parents were visiting from another country. Because of the pandemic, there has been quite a long gap since their last visit. We went for a walk and they commented on a few things and I guess I was seeing things through their eyes.

There seems to be dog poo everywhere - more than ever before. Maybe because everyone got dogs during the pandemic. There is litter everywhere. In my street there are houses that cost a lot of money but many people just dump their rubbish at the front and don’t seem to care. Very few people sweep the front of their houses - the only people who do seem to be older people. The council has no money so is not maintaining anything or doing any cleaning. I could go on…

Is it just me?

@ImInStealthMode. We live in Copenhagen and the difference is startling— in many ways I would like to come back to the UK , mainly friends and family etc, but every time we go back to the UK and London is particular my first thought is, the UK is deeply dirty in many parts. You go to a service station and they all look like you can’t even fancy the loos, here I have yet to go into a public loo or one in a cafe that was remotely iffy— it also feels safer with regard to covid , partly because it’s much cleaner and the air is much better, we do get dog shit here but not much of it— as someone mentioned though it’s high wages, high tax, it’s a different thing and we still have lots of young EU workers out there doing both essential jobs and corporate ones. Basically I think you have the usual level of shit that a Tory government brings in— austerity, particularly with councils and yet 338billion and counting on Brexit

@EvilRingahBitch

Several London boroughs have banned, or are phasing out, glycophosphate spraying on pavements. The increase in weeds has been very visible - my road has had huge growth in six months.

I suppose weeds might be good for the environment?

I live in London and yes I agree. Every public bin is constantly overflowing - that's if you can find one. If there isn't one lots of rubbish just gets left by random lamposts or trees. Fly tipping is everywhere. Dog crap is everywhere. Food waste is everywhere. The whole city permanently smells of cigarette smoke or 'special' cigarette smoke. This seems to be all over London even the posh areas.
It's horrible. It's depressing.
My husband works in a place in (very posh part) Notting Hill. His work place has various dumpster bins. Locals (rich folks) are constantly dumping their random crap in those bins. One is for medical waste. He saw a local putting random crap in that bin and he pointed out that a: these are private not public bins on private property and b: the yellow bin is specifically for medical waste only - just like it says printed on it.
He was told to "fuck off".

More dog poo where we live. Sometimes I wonder if it’s foxes though.

Our council changed its contract with the waste company. So most people now have two weeks collection. It’s fine for people who have a front garden. Those that live above shops have daily collection but in the middle of the day. So the time means you always see the rubbish.

I think because of this we have more fly tipping. It’s a shame. My council made this choice though. When you complain a lot you get a street cleaner.

It is the same where I. live and people seem to have no pride at all even in their own homes. We have new neighbours who bought an immaculately maintained house and garden a year ago and have mowed the lawn once in all that time and have dumped bottles and takeaway cartons in the back garden and empty cardboard boxes on the front which have been slowly rotting.
It is giving me the rage every time I look out . What is wrong with people ?

People arent seriously comparing London to Copenhagen are they? London is a mega city of over 9 million people. Copenhagen is home to less than 800,000 people.

London sees shit loads of people passing through in transit, millions every day.
Copenhagen is primarily home to local people who will naturally have a much bigger sense of responsibility towards the place.

And I don't see how you can blame the Tories for this. If you want to talk absolutely disgusting public and restaurant toilets, France takes the biscuit.

I agree! England is seriously grubby now, shabby with substandard public services. It has got noticeably worse over the last 10 years. Rubbish literally everywhere. Even in my rural village! It's so heartbreaking. And some people just don't care at all. The UK has an international reputation for being dirty and nasty.

Not just you. It’s bloody dog poo hopscotch round our way, and where it’s not dog poo it’s broken glass or litter. Wasn’t this way a few years ago.

I live in Manchester and I came here twenty years ago from another country. The deterioration of it in that time is unreal. We’ve got big skyscrapers (mainly owned by Chinese investors) but the city centre is full of spice addicts, rubbish etc. It’s so sad. If London is like that too, then it’s as if the whole country is on a downward slope. I suspect that having a Tory government for a long time, coupled with local authorities having less money for various reasons is part of the problem. We on,y get our bins emptied once a week and they are tiny so I think there is more fly tipping etc too.

I’m old enough to remember park keepers, public toilets with attendants, bus inspectors… all the people who cared about their little section and kept it running smoothly and with pride. Now none of those people exist and everyone knows they can do whatever they like and get away with it,

@rrhuth

I agree that things are worse than 15 years ago. My town looks the way I remember it in the early 90s.

The amount Labour spent on councils meant street services were much better, now we've had 10+ years of Tory underfunding and things will look shit.

Plus more dogs.

Plus covid backlogs.

Plus increased graffiti etc caused by reduced youth services etc.

Plus increased vandalism caused by reduced police services.

Plus increased flytipping caused by reduced enforcement.

Etc etc etc. It all comes down to austerity.

Agree with this. It felt like the country was thriving 10/15/20 years ago, but it's been going steadily downhill in the last 10 years.

I pick up all litter I see (and this is every day) on our ungated private estate so this immediate area is not too bad. We had an issue with not sure how to describe them ......but new residents who may not have been aware of English law on litter and they have paid for new grass verging which they had ruined and I have also collected as much as three huge black sacks of dumped stuff from outside their house (not on their land of course) and some of that was their workmen but even so other people's workmen take their litter home but again it may be that they had simply not been told about the host culture.

We also have more "beds in sheds" in our London borough of any other in London so those people if you sleep in a garage probably do not have easy access to a waste bin. It is not a simple issue. Our council has an online system where you can report dumped stuff and they do then remove it - a quiet road very near me has often been used for that despite CCTV signs and the council are quite good at moving it. I have also picked up things like dumped chairs and taken them to the council tip over the last year or two.

We also in the UK have 18m more people than when I was born and I bet we don't have the same proportion of litter pickers/council workers so part of the problem is there are just far too many of us here now.

Londons always been grubby

My town looks scruffier too. The council hugely reduced the number of street cleaners to save money - pre COVID so they can’t just blame that - and the effects are obvious. Litter was always a problem and now it lies for weeks.
Weeds are growing in the gutters. It just looks uncared for.
At the same time they’re trying to attract visitors. Hmmmm.

@Valeriane

People arent seriously comparing London to Copenhagen are they? London is a mega city of over 9 million people. Copenhagen is home to less than 800,000 people.

London sees shit loads of people passing through in transit, millions every day.
Copenhagen is primarily home to local people who will naturally have a much bigger sense of responsibility towards the place.

And I don't see how you can blame the Tories for this. If you want to talk absolutely disgusting public and restaurant toilets, France takes the biscuit.

London/the UK trades on people going through it. I don't agree that's the cause of the dirt - I think it's just people - but if it is, then cleaning it up should be a priority to draw more people through it. Tory cuts = less money for cleaning.

No, honestly, I don't think it's getting worse.
And who on earth sweeps the front of their houses?

Dog shit everywhere? Can’t be as bad as Paris for that.

But yes, it is interesting to see something familiar through fresh eyes.

What about some personal responsibility. I stop getting ubers because the cars were filthy inside and funny smells. Funny dog poo is the least of my worries. This city look third world poor in most boroughs. Also, third world mentality and most feeling entitled and expecting the government sort their problems out.

Dog poo is definitely on the increase in London - no wonder, it's not unusual to see dog walkers with 6 or 7 dogs.

On a trip to Russia about 3 years ago I was astonished at the absolute absence of litter in the streets of Moscow & St Petersburg - it's truly amazing! Just on one occasion in a small garden square there were a few cigarette butts and cans next to a bench where some homeless men had been sitting.

How do austerity cuts lead to people spitting and gobbing in the street and leaving their dog's shit on the pavement?

Sounds like Edinburgh. Dogs dirt, vomit, overflowing bins and weeds taking over like The Day of the Triffids.

I have seen cars passing by full of teenagers throwing rubbish on the street. I guess chicken bones are appearing on roads this way.

The Tories have made enormous cuts to council budgets over the last decade. It's no surprise the whole of England is getting dirtier and messier.

I live in a very nice area of London and yesterday I wanted to take a picture of the autumn leaves on the ground with the rows of trees by these expensive mansions and guess what, litter everywhere between the leaves, dog poo splattered

@IntermittentParps

No, honestly, I don't think it's getting worse. And who on earth sweeps the front of their houses?

Everyone where I live in Northern England sweeps in front of their houses. No litter and clean paths. It must be cultural. London is disgusting. I went for a meeting last month and it stank of piss and skunk weed and felt very dangerous at night. People must have a rhino hide to live there now (or be rich)