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…???

Bloody hell, that must be very inconvenient. If I'm doing a lot of pruning or something, I sometimes go 3 times in a weekend, and you can go as often as you like. At our tip, nearly everything is recycled though, separate containers for wood, metal, garden waste (which gets composted, and you can buy bags of it when it's done), cardboard, electrical goods (including white goods). Hardly anything goes to landfill. It's open 9-4, every day bar Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, and the guys who work there are really helpful.

Our bin men are good too, and we still have a weekly collection for non-recyclable and food waste, unlike many areas.

MIL needed to take stuff to the tip a while ago, and she doesn't drive. She arranged for one of my SIL's to take her, and booked the appointment. When they got there, SIL's 4x4 was too tall to get under the barrier, and they weren't allowed to walk in with the rubbish, either, so they had to bring it all back again. Epic fail by Croydon council, imo.

A few days later, I came back from visiting with all her rubbish in my car and took it my local tip.

I have lived on the Essex/Suffolk border all of my 50 years. The area is unrecognisable from the lovely semi rural place it used to be. It’s so scruffy and unkempt looking. Massive holes in the roads. Roadworks everywhere holding us up all the time yet nothing ever looks finished or completed.
The little village that I have lived in all my life has tripled in size with new builds everywhere and it’s all looks so overcrowded with cars everywhere (no new build estates ever build to accommodate the amount of cars we now have). The beautiful fields and meadows I played in as a child are now covered in new builds (there are plans to build 9000 in the village next to us!)
The whole area looks so different and awful to the one I once knew.
I drive for a job and have to use our local A road which seems to have permanent roads works and takes an age to get anywhere. I also agree with the road kill everywhere. Dh works for a highways company, he says there used to be a small crew which was purely for collecting and disposing of dead animals from the roads but as with everything, that’s been disbanded due to council cutbacks.
Our local town was recently given city status, why I don’t know as it is a shit hole and so to are most of the local towns where I live (especially the local coastal towns), they plough zero money into these places and it shows.
I am so worried for my dc, as much as I’d hate to see them move away, I am encouraging them to look into moving countries when they get older, what kind of future will they have in this place? If it’s like this now what will it be like in 20+ years time?

Tories.

The gap between rich and poor is now HUGE. Housing looks rundown (as in, no one has savings to do necessary jobs). When I walk my dog to the park, I pass homes where fences are propped up, driveways are full of litter/weeds/broken flags. We’re all using every penny we have in the basics; just “surviving”.

Since 2010, our public services have been decimated, yet money’s been frittered in enterprises which haven’t happened or have now been abandoned. It’s Johnson’s “garden bridge” UK wide. HS2, “Levelling Up”, PPE scams… all of it just a way of getting money into crooked politician’s’ pockets.

The council I live in can’t afford to sort the roads out. Huge holes in routes which need a massive overhaul. No chance. Shops closing down. So, so many charity shops. We look poor as a country and we’ll spend a small fortune this year on a Coronation which, let’s face it, “we” ought not to be paying for. The Royal estate should be financing that particular party.

I live in a small town where efforts are being made. For example, over the last few winter months the local council has paid for 2 free films to be shown every week, in a warm place (we don't have a cinema). Food and drinks are provided free too. One film is for children, and is just after end of school time, but almost no children have shown up to any of the films. We also have a very nice community garden, which is looked after by volunteers. It's constantly being vandalised by local teenagers. There are lots of cheap sports and youth clubs for teenagers, and a very nice park which is very well maintained. Lots of local culture, too - eg concerts/gigs. Having said that, there are plenty of derelict buildings and shops shutting down, and the local bus service has been reduced due to a lack of drivers. So it's a mixed picture, but such a pity that many people don't take advantage of what is provided for them and don't control their teens.

Uh... it looks ok thanks, though I can only speak for Liverpool I suppose. We won Capital of Culture back in 2008 and a huge amount of money was injected into our waterfront and city centre. It's come on leaps and bounds since the 90s.

I live on the south coast and every time I go into one of the local towns, I feel so nostalgic for how it used to be with a swimming pool, cinema and assorted shops. The town was always bustling during the week and crammed with shoppers on Saturdays.

Now it's full of charity shops, cheap shops, estate agents and very little else. It looks rundown, drab and dirty. Their are some lovely period features on buildings, peeling paint, dirty windows and dirt totally spoils their elegant looks, the High Street looks unloved.

What's worse is that the town I live in is going the same way, lost all the bigger shops, the mall is pretty much deserted and there is no incentive to even go up there at all now.

Really sad 😞

No it isn’t. It’s part of the problem but 13 years of Tory misrule is a bigger part.

These large groups of English men congregating and committing crimes probably lost their jobs due to the brexit downturn.
More should be done to help them back into work.
Maybe they could be given more benefits for forming litter picking groups?

I am horrified by how much litter there is, especially at the roadside of dual carriageways.

BUT..... we shouldn't need Council workers to clear this up : people shouldn't just be winding their windows down and chucking coffee cups, pop bottles, mcdonalds wrappers etc out of their windows. I mean, what kind of Pig do you have to be, to actually think that this is acceptable?

I've lived in our village for 24 years. Nothing is worse here - the normal potholes etc were here under Labour as well. Perhaps you townies in the south east have been spoiled. Our local town has lost some shops but is still pretty. We take pride in our surroundings - local litter pickers keep everywhere clean and we join in competitions for towns in bloom. There can be many reasons for the disparity between areas - no judging - but village life (even with its terrible transport links) seems to foster a spirit of unity which helps to ameliorate cuts to spending a little.

I thought unemployment was low atm

15 years of Tory misrule

I've not heard that old chestnut for a while, and I'm sorry it's being wheeled out again now. Most of you won't remember the bloody awful, dreary, grey mid 70s. Strikes, shortages, crap schools, crap hospitals, basically a shit show. This was under a Labour government. Things only started looking up when Thatcher came to power.

Reading this thread is like going into a smelly old-fashioned pub full of grumpy old men banging on about how everything was better "in my day".

I'm looking out of my window at the moment and I'm afraid I can see nothing but niceness.

Maybe you should get out more? And let's hope you never need to call an ambulance.

Hmm, well why are all these English men sitting around in the day and causing trouble? What has changed?

I clean my street about once a month or so. Litter grabbers and a black bin bag.

Instead of complaining about rubbish, get off your arses and do something about it?

Be the change you ant to see in the world.

@CaraVann

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I have family in Colchester, (I live in the North West), and visit frequently. My family hate living there now because every spare space seems to get built on, and the place has been, and is being, massively overdeveloped. Too many people in what was once a lovely town.
Intriguingly, all the extra council tax these properties will yield does not seem to translate into better council services.........

The jobs are there but I suppose not everyone wants the work

But lately we’ve had an issue with labour shortages rather than higher unemployment

The roads are shocking at the moment - anything away from the main roads are turning into unmade roads.

Its the relatively new phenomenon of plastic bottles of wee discarded along the road side that gets me. They can be bothered to put the lid on so why keep it and chuck it in a bin ? or pour it down a drain and re-use the bottle ?

That’s very noble and I think we should also try to get to the bottom of why people are littering more?

That’s true, not everyone is ambitious or civic-minded, I suppose.

I can't help it if I live somewhere that's nice. Clearly there are places that are becoming run down and unpleasant - but it's not the case across the UK.

I definitely don't fancy summoning an ambulance. But it was the same story in the 70s. My point being that different political party in power, same old shit.

However, there are far more lazy and entitled people around now than there were 30 years ago, and the 'benefits culture' hasn't helped. Why bother to keep anything nice if you haven't invested anything in it in the first place?

13 years actually. I remember the 1970s very well. This feels very like that time. As you say Strikes, shortages, crap schools, crap hospitals, basically a shit show.. We had both Tory and Labour governments in that decade, Heath was appalling as I recall.

The last Labour government made a huge amount of constructive change which has been systematically and deliberately demolished in the last 13 years. Lovely that someone is so sequestered from reality that they see “nothing but niceness”. You should get out more.

It seems like you don't remember when things were a good deal better in the late 1990s and noughties.

Nice sentiment, but it would be a full time job cleaning the litter up from the roadsides here. And most people have a full time job of their own, that actually pays money. The root of the problem, is why are people thinking it's okay to just chuck their shit on the ground? My kids are grown up now, but even as children they knew that wasn't the way that good people behaved - you wait for a bin, or take it home. People visit the beach here, and just leave all their crap behind on the sand. Fuck off with that shit! Who ARE these people?