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…???

I mean people who need proper health care to get back to work.

My best friend was diagnosed with a spinal problem 4 years ago. She was put on serious pain killing meds and a consultant's waiting list. She couldn't drive. She couldn't go to the gym. Sometimes she couldn't dress herself. She couldn't work. Her medication was so extreme that she broke her wrist, but didn't feel it. She only got an xray because her mum noticed bruising and swelling. It was not the only injury she sustained without noticing.

Mid 2019 our trust offered to pay 2/3 of the cost of private treatment abroad if she could get the rest of the money up and would go to Riga for her operation. So that's what she did. She was just back to work when Covid hit, but she was better, WFH and back to volunteering.

Last Christmas, we came out from the pantomime and she saw a message from the hospital. They were calling to schedule her spinal operation on the NHS in the new year. She called them back, explained and was removed from the list.

We laughed at the time, but the reality is, if she had been dependent on the NHS in the UK, she would not be the person she is now. I think we might have actually lost her. If not to her inadvertent injuries, to the mind and body numbing medication.

Fortunately she is back with a vengeance. The fit, healthy, rabble rousing woman on a mission she was destined to be.

I am not benefit bashing. Quite the opposite. Often people castigate those on sickness or disability benefit as shirkers, ignoring the fact that if the NHS was able to do its job properly, the UK would have way more healthy, working people.

The welfare state is no more encouraging of fecklessness than it was two decades ago.

Frankly, if there’s any entitled, selfish, feckless Brits running amok, they’re the ones who went to posh schools - though I suppose you could call the fact the likes of Dido Harding and Baroness Mone are lining their pockets using tax payers money rather than doing an honest days work a peculiar form of “welfare” I guess.

Just because you are in poverty does not mean you cant pick up your own rubbish!!
Councils are still emptying bins , it’s people throwing out of ther cars or just dropping litter. I really think people just don’t care , it’s not my problem, but it is , if every one just decided to take out a black bag and fill it up with litter then the streets in our town wold look better.

I can’t sort out the pot holes, I can’t sort out the NHS but I can pick up rubbish that’s been dropped round we’re I live so that’s what I do. And if every body did the same it would really help.

The Tories have broken our beautiful country the cheeky feckless.Patriots my arse shameless spivs the lot of them.

They really have @ropeycorn. The Tories broke Britain.💔😥

Well, you get the country you deserve.

Agree. I'm in this area. Lots of spending in centre of Birmingham - areas just outside the centre are disgusting. Narrow streets double parked, parking on pavement. Beggars at traffic lights, outside supermarkets - even at the footie now. Litter everywhere. Ugly extensions that just couldn't have planning permission being thrown up. Place is a shit hole.

I left the UK in 2015 as I could see where the country was going, in fact I found it utterly painful what the Tories were inflicting on people. I live in a lovely suburb in Auckland and I am so pleased I made the move when I did. Of course I miss my friends and family but my day to day life is so pleasant. I love driving around nice neighbourhoods and there being no litter, its a really well run country, when I walk down the street, I rarely turn round to see who is behind me, I don't worry about having my handbag stolen when I am sat in a bar or restaurant, we forget to lock the doors to the house sometimes.

When I go back to London and see my old high street, I cant believe I used to live there and not mind it.

New Zealand is the same size as the UK and has a population of less than 10% of the UK. Pretty easy to understand how the environment is nicer overall.

I read a report recently that said compared to France and Spain the UK has 200 less dwellings per 1000 of the population. Pretty clear we need to significantly increase housing available to accommodate the population comfortably.

The government has really failed to keep up development of infrastructure and services to a level needed to support the increasing population in the UK.

It started with Thatcher when we were gaslit that there was no alternative and mainland Europe was an economic basket case that would fall apart. Privatise every thing was the mantra and the belief there was no such thing as society just selfish self interest and that was the true nature of the human condition. And here we are this is the fruits of that poison there for all that have eyes to see.

Funny all you lot complaining about how shit your country is, wondering if you can emigrate yourselves away from all the dreary rubbish and potholes - while blaming immigrants for making things worse.

Can you not hear and see what you are saying? You think the cure is to become those "dreadful immigrants" in another country. You see yourselves as special immigrants though don't you? Any country would be lucky to have you right?

State of you!

You are being honest, you're also true to yourself and whilst I don't hug trees (unless they want one) and am a proud carnivor, I do wholeheartedly agree that this Country is an absolute state!!!

I'm just glad I'm in my twilight years I am able to differentiate the wheat from the chaff. The youngsters of society have sadly become so woke and demanding with that air of 'I want it and I want it now 😢

Auckland - where the art of the ram raid has been perfected by bored teens?

My friends local dairy had a murder recently - shop worker killed for $200 cash. My mums car was stolen too and used to ram raid a liquor store.

It's very common to be burgled in Auckland. But they do have fewer potholes than round here - oh and strangely a huge amount of immigration.

Nz it is very pretty but far from paradise. I lived half my life there and experienced much more crime in nz than I have in uk.

How depressing that some people can even blame poor public maintenance on immigration. No, it is entirely down to brutal cuts on local council funding from central government over 13 years of Conservative rule.

I drive at least twice a year in France and Northern Europe and everywhere is well maintained and clean. There are beautiful floral displays etc, well-maintained roads, neatly-maintained public spaces. Funnily enough they have more immigration there.

I live in a very run down area. There is lots of litter and vandalism and graffiti all over the walls and houses. I've lived here all my life and believe it or not it's actually got better

When I was a kid our Sunday activity was to walk along the beck and count the shopping trolleys dumped in it. And there was a lot more pollution from a tannery (now shut down and turned into flats) so I do think things could be worse.

Councils are still emptying bins

In my area they can't recruit enough refuse staff so rubbish and recycling are often not collected. Our council provides bags, not bins, for recycling so when it isn't collected the bags are left on the street. It wasn't collected for 5 weeks over Christmas and the New Year. Every week there is at least one area that is missed from the usual collection.

Oh my word - the potholes

They're really dangerous imo and yes to wear and tear on car and defat if damage. And in a climate where we have less spare funds to fix it.

It has a feel of the notorious Millwall chant we may be shit but we don't care dystopian feel about a portion of the populace, that or boomerist denial. Never mind though we have an uber expensive Coronation to look forward to where we can pay fealty to the Dysfunctional Family Number One and wave our plastic Chinese made British flags.

I hope people realise this is what they've been voting for. Low taxes and Brexit (no one to do the jobs any more) have resulted in this shit show. The people running the country rarely leave Westminster or the nice places they live in their constituency so they don't care.

That's bloody unfair. I've never voted for any of this. I just have to put up with it because lots of other people have. Oh and I never buy the newspapers that keep trying to tell us that what we have is so much better than the alternative.

It's particularly bad around a lot of the modern housing estates

Where I live the potholes are terrible.
But the countryside is quite twee now thanks to Air bnb - al the uncared for farm workers cottages are done up for holiday makers.

But lots of long term let properties seems to mean they look uncared for with scruffy front gardens.
Also shops aren't run by the owners so get scruffy and no one cleans the pavement outside their shops now. So they just get worse and worse.

Regarding the potholes, we bought a large 4x4 and it copes much better with it all.

No it perfectly true actually, why wouldn't it be.