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 guess we will become what we import. I don’t see a way back.

It's not recent though. The slip road I'm talking about was never picked up 20/30 years ago either. So that's not down to the current govt nor current H&S rules - it pre-dates current reasons! The council couldn't be bothered to pick it up decades ago! My point is that not picking up litter for years/decades makes the problem look worse than it is - it gives the impression that huge amounts of litter has been dropped recently - that may be the case in town centres, but isn't the case on main roads, motorways etc where it may be a culmination of years'/decades' worth of litter, often blown in from elsewhere!

Our refuse collection seems to be tied to the moon and tides now. The street sweeper who used to come after bins were collected has been cut. Our recycling centre/tip has reduced hours. The pavement is cracked and not repaired. Our road has potholes. The school are fundraising for basic equipment.
the park equipment is getting old - anything that cracks or rusts is pulled out rather than repaired and not replaced. The flowers and plants in the park have been pulled out and replaced with. Is he’s which are easier - and cheaper - to maintain.
The 2 parkies who looked after maintenance full time are now 1 and in reduced hours.
public loos are closed more than they are open.

and on it goes. And will continue to go while Eton educated government ministers are in charge.

This is just a sign of poverty: lack of money, lack of intelligence, lack of ambition.

I live in a pleasant village where people group together to maintain/improve the local environment. Litter picks round the village, group gathering to tidy the garden at the village hall etc. Local villages all have active facebook groups which alert members to suspicious behaviour, vandalism, fly tipping, dog fouling…
The majority of residents maintain their homes and gardens very well and contribute to upkeep of communal areas. Several local villages have little libraries in their old red phone boxes. Events at the village halls contribute to a community feel.
I appreciate this is difficult to accomplish in a town.

Obvious point, but I think the growth of fast food and drive throughs over the last few decades has worsened the littering problem.
The beauty spots near us are full of McD's and Costa litter and, surprise surprise, both retailers offer drive throughs just on the edge of our town.

Oh, we have our own run-down seaside towns on the south coast, too! When I moved to Sussex from London (1991), I was surprised to see how deprived some places were, easily as bad as rougher parts of south London.

Ironically, two of the deprived towns in East Sussex were much improved in the 2000's, largely thanks to EU funding, but other towns that weren't too bad have visibly declined over the last 10 years.

I think it depends where you live.

This kind of thing is based on what individual councils spend their money on - it doesn't matter whether you're in the north or south, there are shitholes everywhere.

I live in an affluent town in the north and everything is as nice and well kept as it's always been here 🤷‍♀️

Anyone old enough to remember the shambles that state schools, the NHS and public services were in in the mid-90s after 15 years of Tory misrule should not be surprised - it's the same thing all over again. It only takes 2 or 3 terms of Tory asset-stripping and pocket-lining for the country to degenerate into this state.

The austerity policies pursued since 2011 have led to 300,000 excess deaths. The following was said in 1946 but is just as true today: "They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through ... If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were ... what is Toryism, except organized spivery? They wanted to let the spivs loose.”

I'm in East Anglia and it's the same here. Potholes everywhere, no clear road markings, cracked pavements, litter, and just neighbourhoods that look dirty. Our high street is surprisingly well looked-after, but anything apart from that and the Cathedral is just grim. And it's a relatively wealthy area!

Our MP is awful and has never lived in the area. Only shows up for ribbon cuttings and photo opps. It'll be even worse now as she's recently been given a Secretary of State position.

There is not enough civic pride. In our towns, our land, our countryside. Our cities.
There doesn't seem to be respect for our own environments.

Development. In the wrong places and inappropriate designs.
What used to be pleasant places are turned into crowded, overbuilt over busy ugly ones. What used to be a lovely town where I used to live is unrecognisable now. For decades it hardly changed. Which was part of its charm. Then wow. Monstrous sky high office buildings. Even the sweet cricket ground was ruined forever. More not needed shopping malls.
Housing is a Mish Mash. Where I live now there are new buildings completely at odds with their surroundings.

The countryside built over. We won't get it back. When will it stop !
New developments are built, half empty, and nearby another one goes up. Mostly 3 or 4 bed executive style homes. But crammed in.
No gardens to speak of. Am sorry to say this but multiple cars parked on what used to be a front garden or up a pavement also do look awful.

Roads constantly being 'improved,' widened because you cannot get from A to B anymore without a huge snarled up queue. Pot holes remain though. This adds to the state and tone of an area.

Too many bookies, pizza and kebab shops allowed to flourish.The tone they set is low. We should expect more for ourselves.
Plastic rubbish everywhere. People just chuck stuff anywhere. Out of windows driving along. Take it home.

The North and South. Having lived in both there are poor people across all areas of the UK. And plenty who are not across all areas of the UK.
I will shout up for seaside areas who get forgotten. Nobody speaks up for them.

LizzieSiddal - It doesn't matter which Government are voted in, that won't stop the fact that there are lazy, dirty people in this country. I do a community litter pick in the area I live, we go out for 2-3 hours and can get 18 bags of litter easily and this isn't in a run down area. The next day there is already litter again that people have dropped because they're too lazy to put it in a bin, but nobody will admit that they drop litter, the same as people won't admit that they don't pick up after their dog,

Then there is the new trend of leaving something outside your house which you don't want for other people to have. Fair enough a good idea in principle but if no one has taken it it is still left there for days/weeks on end, why? What people have started doing in my area is leaving unwanted items on grass verges so that you don't know who it belongs to, and then it's left until someone reports it to the council as fly tipping. Why do people do this?

The roads apart from A roads and motorways are in a shocking state. There's crater sized potholes everywhere near me!

I've been hugely shocked by the amount of rubbish, particularly plastic along the Uk's roadsides. I travelled up the A1 to York a few weeks ago and the roadside was littered with huge numbers of plastic bottles for the whole route. Where is it coming , why are people so filthy. Our loca A roads are as bad, it looks like people have just fly tipped, dead badgers and foxes everywhere that the council don't seem to remove. Things have always been bad rubbish wise but just recently I feel it has hit a different level. makes me so sad for our wildlife living in a plastic waste tip.

Same thing with road kill badgers used to be collected they are now left to rot.

Local government carries a lot of social care cost - as that rises so they struggle.

Very true. That's why things are particularly bad in areas where a lot of people go to retire. My county has an unusually high proportion of people of people aged 80+, so their social care costs are disproportionately high.

The town I live in has been a dump since the iron industry moved out.

Deprivation, unemployment, crime.

But a few years ago, the councils answer to that was to erect some sculptures on roundabouts to instil “pride”.

Yeah, that’ll help.

They are always being repaired after being vandalised or having graffiti cleaned off them.

We crossed the border from the Republic to Enniskillen last year and it had been the first time I'd been in Northern Ireland in a couple of years. We were shocked at how run down it was compared to Cavan where we'd just come from. All the roads were dirty and we thought the town centre was really rundown, apart from the old, historic buildings which were still quite nice. On the island of Ireland, the difference between the UK part and the EU part is noticeable. I'm not being bitchy saying that, it's just a truthful observation.

I spent the best part of the 1970s travelling abroad and used to get this impression when returning to the UK (specifically, England). The impression was of overwhelming dreariness, awful food and run down public transport (though at least there were buses). People were told that life here was better than anywhere else and they believed it until they actually went somewhere else.
It feels increasingly similar now.

Given that Cavan has the jokey reputation of being a bit of a hole, the North must be in some state if it compares unfavourably 😱

It's not immigration, it's 13 years of austerity. There hasn't been any investment for over a decade and it shows.

In Europe they drive on the right side of the road, in Britain they drive on the left side of the road and in our shire we drive on what's left of the road.

I'm from the UK but spend a lot of time in western Europe for work. It's definitely worse in the UK. Really depressing.

South east here and its a mish mash of very run down and well maintained within a 20 mile radius.

In the most run down area in the last 10 years crime has increased, the high street has all but vanished and the council has gone bust. So many new flats being built (to add to the congestion thanks to pointless bus lanes & no additional GP surgeries/hospitals or schools are being built) also so many properties sitting abandoned and derelict.

Many friends no longer feel safe even during the day as large groups of men congregate in some areas, one of the local parks has been the scene of murders, rapes and assaults. Its depressing to think how far the area has further fallen.

I guess we’ll see if Labour get in and it improves. I agree it’s made worse by not caring from people. Just dumping stuff