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??

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink]]]]

This is what is happening to us now.

Council initiatives in our area are a joke.

Off the top if my head:

An art installation comprising upright metal girders that play birdsong when wind whistles through it, situated on newly widened pavements outside two local bars which were supposed to encourage cafe culture. What we have is a bottleneck for traffic as it's a major bus route and alit of confused pigeons and drunk pub goers who can't tell if it's night or day due to random artificial dawn choruses.

The BID. Which only rate paying businesses can actively participate in. They wanted to set up a New Years Eve Market on the main sloping Road into town and charge people entry. It was to focus on family friendly entertainment and food stalls which the takeaways and restaurants that populate that strip would pay to rent. On New Years Eve, with about 6 pubs and clubs on the strip as well. It was the most batshit idea I have ever heard.

They funded an alternative market for a couple of years. We were heavily involved with that as we supported the lady who organised it - she paid rates but was not alternative nor an events organisers. We are alternative but weren't rate payers - we also had experience with events and live performances. Win win? Oh no. Much bitchong from the head if the BID about our voluntary involvement. We provided costumes, contacts for entertainment and voluntary manpower and got a free stall - our shop was round the corner and we acted as a staging post for performers etc. It was on about 4 times a year and was very well attended. But it couldn't break even or self sustain - stymied by the costs of insurance, licenses and the bus company bitching about a reroute of Sunday services once every three months. The organiser credited us in press releases - the local rag edited us out.

I could go on.

Several years ago our council was apparently something like the fifth most corrupt in the country. It's probably in the top three now.

Oh, and the famous plans drawn up at a cost if thousands to renovate one particular area. Those were quietly shelved when they realised the main BT hub was under the roundabout at the centre and couldn't be disturbed for the grand pedestrianisation. So we just got the aforementioned widened pavement nearby.

My out of town area got funding grants for regeneration. Nothing has happened in about five years.

I was born here and I could weep.

We are undeveloping, simple as that.

we're moving to Ludlow!

I wrote this earlier as a response to the op, but might as well post it. In a nutshell, many of the problems stem from the conservative govt we’ve had running the country for the majority of the last 50 yrs.

One thing that’s pretty clear is the increasing rich/poor divide in this country.

Tory policy has played a massive part of this ever widening gap, turbo charging it. It’s been basically a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich and it’s reached breaking point now.

Austerity wreaked havoc and continues to do so. Libraries, youth clubs, MH services, police, education allowances and a raft of other services decimated because they aren’t of use to the typically older, property owning Tory voters in affluent areas.

Brexit, removing the ability for the younger to travel and work in the EU freely has had an effect and added to the sense of hopelessness. Many of my friends did this 25 years ago. The stupendous cost of implementing Brexit, robbing funding from services that actually provide something. Brexit also occupied ALL political and parliamentary bandwidth, wasted energy that could have been spent on actually providing something with a benefit to the country rather than only harm and division.

The lack of social housing and a poorly regulated private rental sector as I said earlier, the attitude that housing is an asset to be traded and a driver for the economy, and not the essential need that it is. Again, everything is tilted towards the already affluent property owners and away from the poorer who just need a roof over their head. Private rents now astronomical and landlords are often very rich.

Privatisation has left us with the highest water bills, buggered infrastructure, filthy rivers and seas, yet astronomical dividend payouts for shareholders. Train fares ridiculous yet the network is crumbling. Hs2 an utter failure due to multi layered private company incompetence with a big dose of nimby-ism in there too. France or Switzerland or Norway would have built it in a few years at 1/4 the cost because their governments understand how to manage these infrastructure projects, not outsource them to idiots.

And the level of government fraud that went on during covid was nothing short of criminal. Tens of billions shovelled into the pockets of the right people with the right connections and the right know how. All money that could have been used on policies to actually help the country.

All the above are examples of how Tory policies have combined to give us much of the effect we are now seeing. Labour have only had 3 terms in the last 45 years, and in those terms they brought meaningful improvements to the NHS, education and services in general.

Revolutions can only happen when people feel they have genuinely nothing to lose.
The problem is that with capitalism we are given just enough to make us feel we have everything to lose.

this is quite spot on.

And how do we get anti-social people to learn pro-social behaviours? By denying them their human rights, or through investment in education and training? One way leads only to authoritarianism.

I was in a German city a couple of weeks ago. A half litre of really good beer brewed on site was €4.60.

The rich will never allow a revolution to take place. They'll crush the population before they go down that path.

They failed to stop the French or Russian revolution.
How will they crush the population here?

Went today to go into all the estate agents - see you there sometime! 🤣

I’d just like to add one more thing about my batshit local council. The High Street is literally crumbling, there’s a market with three stallholders (fruit and veg, net curtains and cannabis smoking paraphernalia) and the poshest shop left is Home Bargains. The council’s answer to this urban decay is… to build an ice rink. Give me strength. It’s like The Public in West Bromwich all over again (look it up if you want to see the scale of unbelievably tone deaf and arrogant decisions made by councillors and officers who are completely out of touch with local people but have access to loads of their lovely money).

Tories.
You take away youth centres, you build over parks, kids have nowhere to let off steam and you just need one to become antisocial before mob mentality brings them all down.
You take away mental health services and make it harder to on board in existing ones and mental health spirals, people lose jobs, they lose homes, they neglect their social circle and support network.

You throw both those demographics into the rest of the country where everything is more expensive and the future looks bleak and why even try to do well?

But our problems are those bloody insert any country other than the US here immigrants are the blame - let's spend £1,800,000 PER PERSON sending them to Africa for some reason.

Wanting to solve problems is reasonable.
When that doesn't get done, and people continue to suffer directly or tangentially, people start supporting more extreme remedies.
You don't have to like it - I don't - but that's reality.

This

Mrs Thatcher spent her whole career lambasting the people and the institutions that we now want young folk to respect.

God yes. I never understood how ordinary conservatives could worship someone who openly despised this country’s traditions and culture. Money was her only value.

@BlackCountryWench2 Oh my God, I still remember this and it was ages ago. I noticed the wiki entry has been very kind about it. I wonder who's behind that.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/aug/14/public-inevitable-end-arts-centre-architecture

I seem to remember similar projects happening in Liverpool? And the way councils waste money hasn't changed.

We also need drastic changes in rules about how money can be spent.

But no government will get behind that.

Maybe money is our culture's only value and our chosen politicians merely reflect that.
We have two choices generally, in elections, bar protest votes. This doesn't offer us anywhere close to enough scope for change, new ideas, creative thinking. It's just the same old tripe as the decades roll by. Knee jerk campaigns and scant delivery of anything useful. Our entire political system is so pathetically outdated and corrupt.

I always think it’s interesting when people put things like a lack of youth clubs down as a reason why people are anti-social. Never been to a youth club in my life, didn’t have much money, what I did have was the keen understanding that if I got in trouble my parents would have made my life miserable. We keep passing more and more responsibility onto “society” for what are individual failings in parenting. Being a bit bored as a kid doesn’t directly lead to drug addiction and vandalism.

I probably sound very old fashioned but it’s basically true. I grew up under Thatcher and Blair still the biggest determinant of my behaviour was my parents. They had more money or less money at different times but it didn’t change expectations.

lol yes, i can just see what our local miscreants would do to a youth club. Piss and vomit spring to mind.

@Noicant I totally agree. I grew up in a tiny rural town (not the UK). The town contained houses, a small handful of shops, the school plus sports facilities, a swimming pool, a library and two churches, and a police station. That was it.

There was zero antisocial behaviour and I don't remember being bored ever.

Youth clubs are really important. It is not about the activities. For young people it is about building relationships with adults when they have uninterested or shitty parents.

Very predictable response 'well this was my experience so everyone else must be exactly the same'.

Clearly people must just choose to be antisocial and there's no factors beyond them that bring it about 🙄

I always think it’s interesting when people put things like a lack of youth clubs down as a reason why people are anti-social

Of course that in itself isn’t going to be sole cause of all our woes. But it’s one small element of the myriad of things that younger people don’t have now, opportunities and possibilities that have all been stripped away from them, to the point there’s not much left to look forward to.

I absolutely agree with this.
We were piss poor growing up. I mean hiding from bailiffs poor. My dad got laid off more than once from his manual jobs in the 80s, I didn't know the pressure at the time. I got a new top for my birthday as a teen and jeans for Christmas - this is the 90s not the dark ages. But I had great parents who had ups and downs (shotgun wedding btw) in their relationship and ups and downs in life generally. And we lived near a large extended family, in a place with a strong community vibe - my mum was informed when I was smoking after school, for example.
Bad behaviour WAS NOT tolerated, but kindness gentleness fun combined with responsibility and respect for education.
We had poverty. But my parents weren't alone when they were struggling, there was an aunty nearby to take us off their hands, granny with a plate of sausages and mash, neighbours and friends to have an unscheduled laugh with.
Most people in the history of the world have been poorer in real terms, and there's always been inequality, only they called them Kings not billionaires in those days.
It's not poverty alone, its the lack of functional families, functional communities, day to day life being meshed with longer term relationships with others.
Stifling, yes, conformist, yes - so we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

I would not have gone near a youth club, presided over by nice ladies, and all done in a box ticking, expert approved way.

edit - autocorrect put in lingerie instead of 'longer* term' - rather undermining my socially conservative talking points 😃

But my parents weren't alone when they were struggling, there was an aunty nearby to take us off their hands, granny with a plate of sausages and mash, neighbours and friends to have an unscheduled laugh with

And now they will all be at work or expected to work

Good youth clubs are not presided over by nice ladies. They are more likely to be run by adults who have been in care, or had shitty backgrounds and understand how a relationship with an interested adult can help young people to avoid going on the wrong track.