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…???

@blackpearwhitelilies but interestingly and no doubt I will be called racist for actually daring to mention this(I'm a centre left voter by the way) the business centre I work at is also used as a visa processing centre, for the last6 months every day it's full of Asian , African and Indonesian visa applicant extended families - occasional Hong Kong too and whereas one of the family usually appears to have modestly good English - the rest of the family don't speak it to any degree. It's quite clear the gvt are allowing a lot of immigration and we aren't talking all nuclear scientists either. This renders voting for 'leave' based on immigration utterly pointless- as we still ARE allowing a lot of migration (which I think they are trying to hide) but UK citizens have now lost the reverse benefits of the EU - plus it has zero economic benefits.I don't actually have an issue with good quality immigration but that's not 100% what is happening. The other difference is that it was in the last 10 years mainly young fit and single working people coming from the EU and not bringing extended families --.that is not what I am seeing in the centre I work at.

Our town in Kent is a shithole - people who have come here with no respect for it.

I rarely see posts on here acknowledging that lower taxes in other countries lose tax take here.

Most are tax more it’ll be fine they won’t go - people and corporations

Interesting to read that people are saying this in the south east. I’m from a town just outside Manchester that has always been a state but has definitely got worse.
I left asap and moved abroad. Every time I go back to visit family (roughly every 3-4 months, except during pandemic) the decline is really obvious. Ever more obvious poverty, homelessness, drug use out in the open, etc, a lot of public services have shut down.
Manchester city centre especially feels increasingly run down and dangerous. I spent all my time there as a teen and young adult and never felt uncomfortable, but now I avoid it on visits. Last time I vistited the high street (summer 2022) the shops felt like a cross between a dystopian wasteland and a jumble sale - lots of places shut down or empty, obvious shortage of staff, clothes just piled everywhere. The quality of everything for sale was shocking too - all recycled polyester rubbish. And don’t get me started on the state of Manchester Airport, or the roads"
Also, anyone blaming immigrants must be absolutely off their head! 😂

This is a lot of people commenting on this thread. One of the most comments I've seen in a long time.

This should be another thread and maybe it will be, but what can we do about it? It's our country. Our beautiful country, that we are to give to our children and have our parents grow old in.

I don't have any answers. I picked litter in my street and kids laughed at me and I pulled all the dumped stuff from the alley behind my street alone and my neighbour asked me what on earth I was doing. Every week after bin day I would pick up everything the bin men left. I only did it because it made me so depressed to see, I don't want any praise or recognition. I hate that "aren't I kind" culture, I just hate litter.
What I am trying to say is my small actions did nothing much - a drop in the ocean.

How can it change. How can we all come together to enact change? Politically or something else.
I don't know, just asking what others think we can do.

@FruHagen I live very rurally up North and like you I litter pick. My road is about 4 miles long and I’m in the middle. I try and walk further and do other roads too.

I don’t know what the answer is but we also have litter bug groups in the villages and spring cleaning days that lots of people get involved with. You could try finding a local group or setting one up and advertising on social media. Or canvas your local MP or county council to support regular events?

@FruHagenthe thread isn't really about litter is it ? It's about the widespread decline of the UK and why.

I think part of the widespread decline, @FruHagen is a part of the general decline of your mindset. People are worn down. They make their efforts, but their efforts are a speck of sand on a vast beach, and those that could effect genuine change don't, because it doesn't affect them, in their lovely suburbs, with their private health, and when they go on nice holidays in places more pristine.

Litter picking is really just one part of it though- in my road, the autumn leaves have not been cleared away so have sat there all winter, collecting in the drains, blowing up against my wall, the pavement has moss growing on it now due to that lovely mulch. I've cleaned my own bit of the pavement and the leaves blow back! The roads are dirty with holes in, how can I personally change that, Next Door is full of people reporting potholes to the council, they don't have the money, we are going nowhere.

Here in Brighton loos were just closed. They weren't sold off. The Council says it can't afford to run them. As this has been happening for 30 years I don't think it has anything to do with leaving the EU. Other nearby coastal towns keep loos open and streets clean etc. It's annoying.

The suburbs aren't lovely any more, I first became aware of how shit the UK looked driving to Dover about 8 years ago, going through all those counties, it was a right dump.

Parks also not maintained any more, gardening and park-keeping are skilled jobs, a few volunteers can't plant and maintain extensive grounds or be expected to deal with needles or drug use.

12 years of tory rule. The end.

@FixundFoxi yes totally not just about litter. It's a much bigger problem, however I have been struck by how many people note the litter first, and how this is a sign of everything else going to hell.

I believe that there are big problems but one of the most immediate things anyone can do to improve any situation is make sure there's not a shed-load of crap there.

My home is free of litter, it's the most basic thing I can do to signal to everyone in my family that we need to maintain a standard of civility.

Wow, this ended up sounding preachy. My point is I agree with you, and I have noted everything on this thread regarding politics, economics and Brexit and still think we need litter to be the first rung on the ladder of making Britain great again. That was a joke, I mean making Britain something we are proud of again.

@mbosnz yep, what we do is as naught in the grand scheme.

The people who go into politics don't seem to care about the country. It's hard however to imagine they can avoid seeing the reality of it all, if you drive out of any airport now in the UK you see it. Litter everywhere, run down places, absolutely shockingly disgusting housing estates that aren't even affordable.

The politicians aren't able to live in a bubble. It's obvious, every where. So why don't they fix it? They don't care, they aren't able to or they aren't smart enough to work a way around it.

I don't know. Revolution?

If what people are saying here is correct, the UK will soon end up with the label "Slum of Europe" - is that what the great and good want? They need to pull their fingers out and get on with the job of trying to restore a civilised atmosphere. I've noticed that in countries where there's a sense of civic pride, and good personal presentation (ie. with the way they dress) citizens - including those who have arrived from other parts of the world, mostly tend to adapt to the code of what's around them. If that code indicates order and a degree of civility - then even newcomers tend to pick up that thread and go with it. On the basis of the fish rotting from the head down, the UK especially has its long run of quagmire-style leaders to blame for the sloppiness of the nation. It doesn't have to be this way, and schools especially, have a BIG role to play in improving things.

@WTAFhappened123 be interesting to see of those making a mess how many were actually born and bred in the area- we lived in Canterbury for 9 years- not many immigrants in reality but a ton of locals with no standards either - particularly younger ones and some older 'geezer' types too - whilst some is people generated, a lot of the general decline is due to a lack of maintanance due to councils having no spare money as no longer centrally funded.

@FruHagen thanks ! I agree that superficially improving a place can have a hugely positive impact on how its residents view said environment and how much they take care of it. People maybe are less likely to litter if they see
others picking it up but then again…..

This thread is almost funny - no wonder the Australians and Kiwis talk about ‘whinging poms’.

Stop looking for someone else to blame and change your own environment if you don’t like it.

Stop telling us we voted for this when MILLIONS of us didn't. MIlLLIONS of us marched against Brexit and Tory austerity.

Democracy means nothing when the MSM lies and lies to the electorate. When the Government lies and lies to the electorate.

It makes it much, much harder to endure something you didn't vote for. But I won't take being told I asked for this. Because I didn't and millions of others didn't either.

I think it's very easy to not see the reality if you don't want to see it. Or if you do see it, to blame everyone but yourselves for this reality - for not working harder and longer, and for less, for not wanting to do it for free, cos community or vocation.

It's sad. It is what comes of having what thinks of itself as the (natural) political class, or the ruling class, and electing them, thereby endorsing their delusion.

I'm a Kiwi living in the UK. I might be whinging, but mostly I'm sad. I lived here in 99-03, and it's a very different country now to what it was then. It's quite hard to change anything outside your own backyard, in any meaningful way.

I think because we generally move to an area that is not gentrified then five years or so later it changes and improves it feels different.

Compared to two decades ago it is a different place but not worse off. So much has changed.

I can see this is specific to where I am though

I said it earlier in the thread, societal attitudes will change if the "Broken Window" theory is adopted.

If we pay Council Tax and still see litter, potholes, lack of basic maintenance and so on, so there is little aspiration to see the bigger things getting any better.

It's definitely needed @PillBoxes, but like everything else over the past 13years, it won't be implemented unless a Tory can make money out of it.

The sooner the cunts fuck off, the better this country will be.