To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

[AbstractThought]

I wasn't born here, DH was, and I have seen it discussed on MN in the past. I am aware that many towns across the UK are in a similar situation, so this probably isn't anything special, but since most people talk about shop closures I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

In the past decade we have a ton more issues in the town than previously, often relating to homelessness and addiction, and the town centre, what's left of it, has become completely over run by these problems with groups of people fighting and street drinking. A lot of these people are in extreme difficulty, whether mental health related and/or drug issues. Crime shot through the roof, and even about 8 streets away from this it spills outwards to us in what was once a fairly quiet place to live.
We now have a constant stream of siren noise, day and night, helicopters are daily and whilst we personally haven't felt in any actual danger there is a horrible sense of decay and hopelessness. Just nipping to the closest supermarket is depressing, there are a lot of neglected animals and people having meltdowns in the streets.

It is how it changed so quickly though. I can't get my head around where it all started or why. I am aware of the contribution of politics, covid, all of that stuff, but it seems so incredibly extreme. The siren noise is the worst, it is piercing and never seems to end. This also seemed to explode around the same time as the area went downhill. Probably a mix of police and emergency vehicles. It is difficult to work or relax at home and if you are a light sleeper it can have an impact there too.

What I am wondering is if this is commonplace now, in what was once a thriving town? It is the sheer amount of troubled people which seems to have escalated the most, and I can't get my head around how this has evolved, in such a short space of time. It is like they weren't here, then suddenly appeared, it is difficult to describe it. Obviously the council can't do a great deal to help and I have no idea what the answer is. The most upsetting thing is that a lot of these people are so messed up that they can barely talk in a way that is decipherable. This includes children, and there is a growing amount of people who have barely any teeth. This is a fucking severe problem and I have no idea what will help it. We have mucked in with a few local charities but it barely scratches the surface in my opinion.
We are moving due to work relocation soon, so whilst it may not be 'our' problem after we have gone, this isn't the point. I am just so sorry that it has come to this, in likely even more places than just here. WTF happened??

Yes there is lots of corruption, lobbying , sending donors to the Lords etc. Why do you think Labour are any better? Blair is now a multi millionaire why do you think that is? The top people in both Labour and Tory have more in common with each other than they do with normal people - wake up!

What makes fentanyl worse than all the other horror drugs we have known our streets?

I honestly don't know. The town centre never used to attract gangs of kids. A lot of them are school teens now, and during covid casually went about ripping hand sanitisers off walls, destroying public bins and taking up door space at shops like B&M's, etc.

In years before it was a rare sight. Schoolkids often passed through town, usually from the decent school nearby, but they were mixed groups of boys and girls who never made a peep really. Now they are all boys, you rarely see any women or girls in the town centre unless they are drunk.

Yes why weren't the police stopping them?

Someone mentioned earlier about having both people in a household working, and maybe this is the problem.

If you had one person at home not working like the good old days (it could be a man or a woman), that person has a lot more time to get involved. Help out neighbours and family, unofficially police their area, the old fashioned "busy bodies". Basically these people (and they were traditionally women but today they could be men) undertook a lot of silent unpaid labour that now we must ask our councils to provide

Now with everyone in a household working, there is no time to really be too engaged in what the situation is with extended family and community.

To me there seems to be a big problem to solve with work. What is the future of it? Right now we have these factors that are at play:

• They said tech would help us work less, but we still have a 40 hour week like 60 years ago?
• Menial jobs will disappear
• Women are outperforming men in education so it's possible the pay imbalance will reverse in 50 years time

We need to restructure the concept of work, because the old way of working is no longer working.

I don't know why the police were so laid back. They were stood about 10 feet back, in uniform, fucking smiling. A lot of people entering the bus station had to step around the boys, many looked nervous or turned back, especially elderly
It gave the impression that the public are supposed to adapt to the situation and avoid it, even in a busy public space, rather than be able to trust the authorities to move trouble away.

Shops would deliver, free of charge, same day, items large and small,
furniture or food.
My mum would send one of us in with her ‘order book’ on a Tuesday,
which would be returned with her order on Friday, prices marked against
the goods, she would pay cash there and then, everybody happy.
The greengrocer, butcher, farmshop delivered weekly, milkman daily

This is thirty years ago.

How is anyone taking a long hard look at themselves now able to shop with these esteemed Titans of retail who are no longer with us, trading, holding their own against Tesco? - up and down the country, the same tale.

There have been many stories over the years where members of the public have tried to stop miscreants and themselves been arrested by the police. Or stabbed by the miscreants. So people don't have the confidence now and the police have stopped doing their job.

I guess it will be important to figure out: where have these kids suddenly come from?

Social media. It's out of control. It feeds the voids left by the stifling of creativity. While we oldies treat Andrew Tate et al like naughty toddlers and hope they'll go away if we just ignore them, the damage has already been done. I've gone screaming banshee on youths in masks who've tried to intimidate me in my shop.

My DS (30 and by no means an angel) went green when I told him. He was frightened that I would get stabbed or end up prosecuted myself because I had no fucks left to give and could well go postal.

And it's really not my style. My diplomatic parenting of teenagers has been praised by people in authority. Firm but communicative has always been my metric. It's disturbing to find oneself so irate that you could lose control quite easily.

I will say again though that I really think there is MUCH more at stake here than a few closed shops. Our shopping trends are not causing this, it is a problem that has been ignored and allowed to grow.
Whenever these topics pop up they always descend into discussions about boarded up shops and turkish barbers. It is much, much more complex than 'internet'.

It is the loss of services who help people. And not just the official ones either.
As things have moved online or through call centres it has made it more difficult for people to get access to those services that remain or to get information and advice. So people already struggling at the margin give up trying to get access.

And when you drop out of this struggling but coping marginal group, to struggling and not coping, then you lose a sense of investment into society. You think no one gives a fuck about me, so why should I give a fuck about others.

This. This in spades.

I think it wouldn't hurt this country to get back to a less care bear vibe and a more crack of the whip law and order approach. I'm not suggesting nazi Germany, but you know you mention France, when you go there you see the police strolling around with guns. The French police look like you fuck with them and they can take you down, same in italy.
If our country feels lawless its because it is

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-committee-finds-china-is-subsidizing-american-fentanyl-crisis-2024-04-16/

I'm dealing with the housing department at our council. Hoop after hoop. Giving the same info over and over again. My designated housing officer either out if office or on holiday.

I'm also trying to help my elderly parents, both in different types of crisis navigate the system. I'm a whisker away from suing the NHS for negligence after giving the same information over and over, important health information which has been other recorded not shared between agencies and outright dismissed. Three months of this and they're only just "reviewing" things.

Is it any wonder I'm broken and now medicated for high blood pressure?

I think not.

Each little thing makes a difference though.. the shops that have been boarded up no longer employ the local youths etc so they wander round with nothing to do.

Then if the town centre is deserted they can sit around drinking and taking drugs etc. It all adds up

@AbstractThought We have become a country of spoilt, angry toddlers with no incentive to change. I think this is largely exacerbated and encouraged by the working class tabloids.

I’ll see your ‘’working class’ tabloids’ and raise you one over privileged semi aristocratic Boris Johnson for whom the rules didn’t apply. The fish rots from the head down. How many of our current government have faced no consequences for absolutely appalling behaviour? Some of them should be in bloody prison frankly. Johnson was the biggest, spoilt toddler of them all. The problems in this country can be laid at his class’s door, not the working class.

think there must be a fear factor at play, but why? Somehow the anti social kids seem scarier now than eg 30 years ago. But arr they really? And if so, why is that?

Lack of police and lack of consequences if the police do intervene. Also, as pp have pointed out if members of the public intervene, they could get seriously hurt and/or be arrested themselves.

I understand how these people feel. I am struggling but coping. But getting help with anything is so difficult these days. For example at one time people who struggled with basic literacy could go to a council office and get help to apply for council tax, or go to cba to get help with form filling. Now only the cba help with this and the waiting times can be ridiculously long.

If a company makes a mistake with your utilities it can mean many hours on the phone trying to sort it out. I know people who have only managed to get things sorted by complaining to Ofgem. People with poor literacy and little credit on their phone can often not navigate this, so can end up with a pre payment meter they can not afford, through no fault of their own.

Even seeing a GP can be difficult. So the people already struggling give up and do not bother.

We are just managing financially. But I honestly think if I did have to use a foodbank I could not cope with getting a formal referral and I would be tempted to just steal instead. So I do understand some of this.

People struggling but just about managing used to be able to drop in and get help from various local staff they knew would at least advise them. A friend who was a local librarian said she used to get several people bringing in letters they could not read asking them to read them for them. We had a local council office that would get people dropping in for all sorts of help and information. None of this is available now.

Maybe the answer is simply that these people have always existed throughout the ages but two things have changed:

1 - They used to only have access to alcohol, now they have loads of substances available
2 - They used to be policed with a heavy hand

All we need to do is fix those two factors

And a job really does make a difference for a lot of those on the edge of falling into the not coping group. Having to get up every day and do something, especially if it is something you can do well enough to feel good about. But as mentioned just about every job these days requires good literacy, IT skills, and many require good communication and team work skills. For those who do not have these getting a job can be almost impossible.
I employed in a previous job a cleaner who had learning difficulties, so could not complete an application form or do an interview. But they were proud of being good at cleaning and getting a wage packet. Getting jobs like this now for anyone is extremely tough.

I’d be happy to be more like France if we adopted some of the socialism they still enjoy. France is a much more left wing country, despite Macron’s right wing credentials. They didn’t let the market decide and are a better country for it. They also had a guillotine and weren’t frightened to use it, but that’s a whole new thread.

@LiquoriceAllsort2 I believe Labour have talked about something similar.

They also had a guillotine and weren’t frightened to use it, but that’s a whole new thread.

Hairbear do you think it should be reintroduced? And for the same people as it was originally used for?