watching a town completely die

[BlessedByTheShitFairy]

This is so sad really, the town where I grew up. I know many business folded during covid and many high street staples have been closing for years, but this is different.

It's a large town, over 400K population, had a bustling, varied and thriving centre for most it's history, has now lost, and many before covid:

Debs, Next, M&S, Topshop, H&M, Body Shop, its central post office, game shops, cafes, most youth related places such as skating, bowling, carts, ALL restaurants (no exaggeration), health food stores, 2 shopping centres, most pubs, it's huge market, several banks, nightclubs, a town centre co-op, Spar, book shops, many charity shops and all of it's high end hair salons. Even the Starbucks slid off and the main post office was reduced from around 10 staff to 1 and shoved into a tiny toilet sized cubicle on the periphery of the borough.

These have been survived and replaced by - pop up eyebrow/lashes salons, fast food joints, poundshops, phone-unlocking shops, cash converter type shops, Primark (it's only remaining clothes store), Iceland, and the rest if boarded up. Interestingly a ton of privately owned car parks have taken over the area and hardly anyone uses them. It is unrecognisable from even 7 years ago. It now only attracts crime, heavy drinking, and a much less diverse population.

I know many towns have experienced closures of big brands, and things are simply changing (the net, everything online, etc) but this is really extreme, especially in comparison to a few years ago, it was not particularly suffering a decline. I do know that the council slowly sold off everything over the years, and have sent 2 huge shopping centres to their doom by selling to overseas investors who never came and filled them, so they are like enormous empty spaces that attract crime.

I don't currently live there but my remaining family that do say they never go in to town anymore, and feel forced to buy everything from standalone supermarkets in other areas.
I live in a fairly average town that has seen changes but there are also attempts at rejuvenation. Things are still ok and thriving in the centre. I am also aware that many towns are coping ok, taking the rough with the smooth, even though these issues have increased across the uk over all.

What could have happened to this one? Why so desolate and different? It is like the council just gave up sold it off and turned away. It never used to suffer so much crime, and the sound of police and ambulances is constant around the area now. The town centre was it's pride and joy, had so much put into it (festivals, events), so I can't understand how it got so bad.
Even the people who you see there now are all strangely similar (dress the same, same behaviours) and the diversity has vanished. Curiously rents are still super high and I have no idea who is taking them, if at all.

I feel sad about it because I grew up there, and have so many good memories of my teens when it was thriving, packed and full of interesting places to go and shop. The pubs were visited from far and wide, and it had a great college, access to learning, and much more culture. Now it is lucky to hold on to a handful of football clubs and that's the only interest left. Where and why did everything just die? It was previously so bloody alive.

The OP’s home town was identified as Wigan on page 2. Wigan has been referenced multiple times on the thread.

Same in my town in south - dead.

For the love of god. Are you still banging on about Harrogate being an urban dystopia full of drug addicts, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

You now claim that weekend visitors don’t see the people “urinating everywhere”, or people lying in pools of vomit outside Waitrose or middle aged women on hen dos dropping their knickers and squatting down in the street in broad daylight (your earlier post).

Why? Are the rowdy hen dos of which you speak taking place during the working week? Tuesday afternoons, perhaps?

Please do take the photos. Particularly of the ‘lack of shops’. I’ve seldom seen such a proliferation of nice shops as there is in Harrogate.

That you have ‘drunks in the garden’ every day after 4 pm (how?) and can’t bring yourself to walk five minutes into town, such is your disappointment over the drug gangs of Harrogate and the lack of towel and suitcase-buying opportunities, does not mean that Harrogate is a ‘bleak’ town.

Now all the shops are gone we will be stuck with Amazon whose prices are bound to increase (or at least the delivery prices will) due to fuel price increases. No doubt the cost of shipping everything from China will go up too.
Maybe some people will start manufacturing stuff here now China is less competitive price wise.

Sounds like the town I grew up in the midlands. Depressing shopping centre

I think it doesn't help that we are trying to save the planet. Decades ago, when I was in my twenties, shopping meant buying pointless little things, like a nice quirky jam in its own little pot, or an extra tea towel because it's pretty, a scented small bottle of bath oil from the Body Shop, or a new eyeliner one doesn't really need. Clothes were: " Oh, this teeshirt's a nice colour, I think I'll get it". Now we are ethically discouraged from buying a load of disposable stuff, not by being lectured at, but by our own internal compass, because we have all bought in to this environmental idea.

Added to that, we do a lot online too - just for entertainment. We probably don't do as much practical stuff, like crochet or embroidery, or going out to meet potential new partners at the pub, for fun. Covid has, if anything, enhanced this. I know people who used to play bridge at a club, twice a week. Now, since last year, matches are played online. If you don't go out as much to do things, you don't need as many clothes and don't get into the habit of popping to shopping precincts for a browse and buy.

It’s not helpful to complain about those who are ‘too stingy to spend a few quid’ on whatever to keep up a town centre when the reality is that many people are struggling to pay basic bills. I do think land prices are at the bottom of all of it, and the incredible greed of the spoiled few that has been encouraged under neoliberalism. The constant comments about the linked social decline are the same story people on the economic left (not to be confused with weird moralising tendencies linked to the political left) have been trying to tell the damned central government for eons.

I don't think we are a consumer society, as we used to be. Even people must question if it's the thing to spend, maybe a grand each summer on their garden - fertilizers, lawn feeders, flowers for pots which don't survive a year, pond features with artificial fountains and waterfalls pumping it out and all the nightly watering. I bet a lot of people have gone for a more overgrown natural look which feeds butterflies, but not the pockets of the garden tools manufacturers. I know these bits often come from big garden centres, but little gift shops sell a lot of these ornamental trowels and pots too.

Book shops and puzzle books were a thing in WH Smith, but a lot of puzzles and reading gets done online.

It’s not helpful to complain about those who are ‘too stingy to spend a few quid’ on whatever to keep up a town centre when the reality is that many people are struggling to pay basic bills

If you truly are struggling to pay basic bills you are unlikely to be driving to a retail park to visit the shops there. Which is what the posters who resent paying for parking in their local towns are doing. They aren’t avoiding parking costs through poverty, but because they resent paying to park (a few other relate£ reasons have been given - might not have the right change, don’t like pay and display machines and prefer pay on exit etc etc - but it boils down to not wanting to pay).

Which is fair enough, but those same posters are in no position to complain that their town centre has boarded up shops and not enough cafes or the wrong type of shops, if they aren’t using that town’s services because they can’t bring themselves to pay £2.50 for parking.

I think in many cases ease is key so an amount might be tiny but people change behaviour. So the responsibility is to those who put in place the costs, even if small

Just thinking of plastic bag cost which hugely lowered use, it’s for the better of course (and it’s a small amount) but there’s a lot of people trying to work out how to get us doing beneficial stuff. Parking restrictions or costs are something that will have an impact and impacts should be considered before putting in place.

We had the petitions which must have stopped the introduction which would have impacted the local businesses.

Yeah thats very true

I agree. I think we are buying less stuff on the whole.

town centres need to evolve and ‘undevelop’ somehow

@BlessedByTheShitFairy I grew up in a former USSR country. The nearest town was built in Soviet Times. A huge chemical factory in an otherwise rural area, with housing for nearly 30,000. When the Soviet Union fell the factory closed. For 30 years there has been no work in the area in the artificial town.
There is no infrastructure, the only ‘buses’ are private minibuses that you flag down at the sites of bus stops. Prices vary and the conditions of vans are wild. There is no rubbish collection, street cleaning. Most throw rubbish in an open pit on the edge of the town.
roads have broken in boulders alone main routes. Tower blocks are smashed out for the first few floors.
Those who’ve stayed face in huge numbers drug and alcohol abuse. People, even children, live among pipes and basements. There are obvious signs of it anyway you go. Mainly old people and addicts live there.
Just really telling the story as your post triggered a memory. When I was it was a good town. Everyone had work, needs were met. Not rich but a decent place with work, food and safety that was better than a collective farm tie, more freedom and modern apartments.
It’s very very sad to witness a childhood home crumble. Now there is war too, it’s basically now a place of stories. Like saying you come from a fictional town, it simply doesn’t exist anywhere but in the older adults minds. Like Talking about anaemia to the teens.

Narnia, not anemia in the last sentence

People really like moaning about their towns though. Pretty much all local community groups for different towns constantly slag off their own town. This has the knock on effect of discouraging others from using it. They all moan how its dead or dying and yet a lot of them then say they havent even been in town for a few years as its so terrible.
Its contagious then as others just look for the negativity.
I live in one of these town centres that people moan about and tbh, i dont think its as dire a situation at all. Not yet anyway. Changes definitely need to be made, but its frustrating for me as theres still a lot going for it, but if people refuse to go because they have heard its shit, they wouldnt know about the great little independent places trying to make a go of it.
Since lockdown ive made a point of buying things i need in real life. It made me sick to see the enormous profiteering by amazon and big corps while smaller ones couldnt trade.
Big corporations moving out of town to save pennies really does show there is no loyalty to communities, only to the shareholders. Its not how i want it to be.
They all tried to act like they were friendly locals that we should support in the pandemic - im looking at you, our local m&s - but now despite always being busy, theyre moving to a bloody industrial retail park out of town. I think its quite shameful.

town centres need to evolve and ‘undevelop’ somehow

Yes! These spaces need to be completely reimagined now. I've read about ideas (stolen from Japan) of planting an abundance of flowering trees in some areas as a longer term plan to encourage visitors. That's just one example but it's activities for children and young people that really need to be explorered. Much of the empty retail spaces could be turned into residential homes. I wish our borough had more inventive planning other than the high rises that are going up.

Thanks for sharing that, i can imagine there's a sense of deep loss, I understand what you mean likening it to Narnia.

For Wigan to undevelop/turn around, something would have to be done with all of the areas surrounding the town centre, for all are riddled with various problems such as poverty, crime or other social issues. Barely anyone in this area continues education and there are no local jobs worth taking - sadly these areas are also where the single person council flats are, mostly with smashed windows and drinking/drugs visible in the streets.
Turning the town centre into an urban housing development might sound like a great idea in theory, but who would want to live close to the crime and issues surrounding it on all sides?
A few new 'eco' homes were build close to Wigan Pier, the roads are insane in this area and they have been standing empty for a long time.

Most new housing in this area either stands empty or becomes a HMO. Transients don't care for the area and the issues become worse.

Someone needs to rethink Wigan, that's for sure.There will be far worse places, I know that, but it isn't looking good for the future.

Before anyone else tells me how much it costs to park in their local town Iwas specifically referring to this post, upthread:

I try and go into town to support local businesses but the last two trips to my local town centre have been a nightmare…£5 for 2.5 hours parking

@Iamthewombat that’s me you were quoting. You seem really quite annoyed about my parking price comment but you’ve taken it a bit out of context - the parking was just one of a long list of things about my town centre that makes it difficult to shop there.

lt’s a privately owned car park so the money isn’t all going to the council. I still use the town centre fairly regularly anyway despite all the above as I like a mooch round the shops, so not sure why I’m coming in for such a hammering 😝.

Also I wasn’t ‘complaining’ about the death of the night time economy in my town, just referencing it in terms of how all our social habits are changing and that’s having a knock on effect on town centres. Where I live used to have around 7 big nightclubs that attracted people from the whole of the south east (it’s also where I spent most of my teen years 🤣) - now they’re all shut because no-one really goes clubbing anymore, but the pubs and bars are doing ok.

Family member has a friend in Bryansk
He said the minibuses one flags down are so random- money just passed over the heads of other passengers to pay the driver.
As a visitor, he was glad to have a Russian person with him for these.
The Kruschovskis ( hastily thrown up housing blocks) are a bit bleak, too.

My hometown was Farnworth, so I know Bolton very well. When we were growing up, 50s/60s, there was a good selection of shops for most needs, if it was something really really special then we went into Manchester.
I left the area in the late 60s for College and then lived abroad, Yorkshire and proper abroad, until the mid 80s. When we returned Bolton seemed to be on the up, there was a sense of optimism about the place but by the Millennium it was on the slide, a lot of the problems can be traced to an extreme Labour Council. I would love to see it rise again but it has now been oveertaken by Bury and other places and it will be a hard slog back. I'm not there now, nothing left to keep us there, but I plan a trip 'home' soon, if only to see the new Egyptology Rooms in the Museum!

@JudgeJ the council was hardly extreme. Huge cuts to public spending are what's done for Bolton and others of its ilk. Literally millions and still more to come. The whole area is massively deprived, poor schooling, few decent job opportunities, low aspirations, low wages. 4 out of 12 libraries shut (incl ours), and numerous Surestarts gone.There are very affluent areas well insulated from all the effects of austerity but the folk there rarely mix with the plebs and live in a bubble, sending their kids to Canon Slade or Bolton School and shopping at Middlebrook.
Tbh the town is its own worst enemy sadly, voting for Brexit and now has 2 out of 3 tory Mps who do bugger all. Hopefully now we have them we may get some more funding from central government !

And tbf the town started sliding from 2010 onwards. Funny that.