To think a lot of the Uk looks like a state

[Novembermummy88]

Not sure if I am being dramatic or if years of austerity are really starting to show…? Lately I’ve really started to notice how filthy, run down and falling apart everywhere looks! I live in a town in the south east on the borders of the M25. Every where there are gapping pot holes (can hardly avoid the volume there are now and genuinely concerned I will lose a wheel at some point!), broken lamp posts, the volume of litter / filth on the roads seems very high and can’t remember the last time I saw a road sweeper, and things like pathways are a state, road markings worn out, SO many closed/dilapidated shops….the town just looks awful as do many of the nearby towns! Is it just the South East looking like this? Aibu?! Or have I watched too much Selling Sunsets and setting my expectations too high…???

Totally agree

No. Perfectly reasonable.

This country has got significantly worse in a very short space of time.

Looks like a tip where I am! Also South East, probably nearish to you!

YANBU it’s an absolute dump for the most part. Ugly grey houses and buildings thrown up everywhere with zero thought given to aesthetics. Not helped by the miserable weather. Just depressing.

We are on a one way ticket to dystopiaville

I thought this today driving through what was once a really nice part of town , no money spent on it in years and looks old ( not in a good full of character way just old ) tired and drab

The roads where I am are terrible, constantly being patched instead of properly fixed. Even the motorway close by is dreadful for potholes!

I live on a new estate 1-4 years old depending on where you are. There's rubbish everywhere, my neighbours constantly have rubbish on their garden and never pick it up.

Bind in the park are never emptied either.

Overall I agree!

I didn’t want to start a depressing thread but I just really started to think maybe I am going mad / mis remembering how much nicer I thought the areas used to look. It makes me genuinely concerned for what this country will be like for our kids….let alone the nhs, policing etc!!!

Was the same before 1997, it is because the Tories cut council budgets. I rember clearly some areas of my town in the mid 90s, and then they improved, and now they're awful again.

YANBU. The North and most of the cosst has looked like this for a long time but post-Brexit, with all the economic problems that brought, the south-east is also looking a bit shit.

Imagine how the North looks now 🫣

I was saying to DP tonight as I was driving along, 90% of the roads in our town are bumpy, uneven, potholes etc. It's a fucking disgrace and I get so many punctures and flat tyres.

Yes, completely agree. I've noticed it too. It's so depressing. The tories and their cuts are running this country into the ground. Not that they ever have to see it from their country estates and mansions.

most of the west midlands resembles a cess pit, so sad to see the decline in a lot of arrears over the last 40 years.

Where I am the littering has only been a massive problem since the council reduced the bin collections. It was a thousand times worse last year when they introduced an extra charge to have your garden waste bin emptying. I live next to a prime fly tipping area where we have lorries offloading tonnes of garden waste at a time. I’m in the north west so our council doesn’t care, the same as yours

Also SE but judging from my area, and other areas I go to often...yes.

Agree with you.

I hate driving anywhere new because I don't know which roads to avoid pothole wise and also all the road markings are so faded I can't tell where the lanes are properly much less which one I'm supposed to be in.

And everything is so dirty! I go in the co op and it's like fucking blade runner in the self service till area - crappy bits of food in corners, random shit objects sort of left lying around, no staff member in sight and a screen that tells me it's filming my stagflationary misery.

Kind of relieved I’m not the only one thinking this!! I genuinely don’t know what will change in this country. I know we are told the world is facing a cost of living crisis, but, really is places like the rest of Europe or Australia in this state?

Austerity was a terrible idea. Made us all poorer.

I don't know about those but family in America - Tennessee, Virginia, New York - say that city and suburb are pretty bad. Two have a long commute from a rural part and that is okay, they're glad they went rural.

Totally agree - I think it's really worrying. I've always been centre left even voting Tory once based on general philosophical differences but this lot have utterly ruined any chance I'll ever vote Tory again. The greed, fraud, theft and frankly treason they've proven themselves capable of is just disgusting and is one of the few things that makes me really angry. And maybe I was wrong but I thought we used to have 2 or even 3 credible parties with mostly honourable politicians doing what they thought was best for the country - and now we have captured bunch of bribable puppets asset stripping the whole country to line their own pockets??
I think sadly the Twitter trolls and violence/threats facing MPs these days means lots of decent normal folk are out off entering politics leaving mostly thick skinned power crazed money grabbers who say anything to get elected then just go for whatever they want once they're in office.
Why use taxpayers money to fill potholes or create a clean comfortable safe environment for us commoners when they can organise £bn fake contracts and take massive cuts for themselves. Ruined this country they have.

The worst things are the housing estates and the traffic.

Everywhere I go in the south east it’s the same - vile new housing estates filled with rabbit hutches squeezed on top of one another. We have NO personal space. Developers, of course, care only about one thing - money. So they jam these disgusting hobbit homes onto any bit of scrap land they can find. Time and again I look at think “Jesus, look how small that house is” only to discover it’s actually two, or even three houses. We’re slowly replacing the green belt with slums. When I hear people in cities talk about retiring to the country for peace and quiet I want to laugh out loud. All the villages round here are morphing into giant new build estates. There won’t BE any countryside by the time they retire.

As for the roads, not only are they falling apart, the traffic round here is so bad it’s close to some kind of crisis. We can’t be far off having to book time slots to use the roads.

JoonT yes, overpopulation is at the root of this.

YANBU. As well as the dreadful state of the roads, a lot of areas round here have lost any pride in their home. When my grandparents had their council house everything was neatly clipped and cared for and they didn’t have any spare cash. The area now is a dump.
On the two 80s estates near me there are far too many hacked at leylandii conifers where they have grown too large to afford to have them cut or one side needs to cut it. They are so ugly.

Ive never actually voted Tories but in reality probably saw, at one point, more hope in them than the other parties. However now, I think they have absolutely ruined this country. Like you say though - I honestly can’t see a party I would vote for! I would vote labour just to get Tories out and pray for a better outcome for this country - but I don’t really like Labour Party either atm!!

that’s a good point about social media and blame culture etc putting some people off becoming MPs, but it is a really good point I agree with. There just doesn’t appear any hopeful looking party to vote for..!!