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??

I do think the teeth/ unintelligible language is due to drugs. The local town square where I work has a group that congregate in the main square. It’s a real shame as it used to be quite a tourist town.

There are many towns in France and Spain with the same problem, so the root cause goes beyond just politics.

Yes but no one really picks up crack and heroin one day for a laugh when their life is all peachy.
Generally the people who become drug addled are from extremely traumatic/ impoverished backgrounds/ ex care/ been abused etc etc. A smaller proportion are rich kids that thought they were clever abusing drugs but their parents usually bail them out of the lifestyle with private medical care.

Not a town, but the nice London suburb I grew up in has literally gone to the dogs the last couple of years. I once never saw myself leaving here but now we can't wait to escape. My adult son describes it as "an absolute shit hole". He's not wrong.

There's truth in this. When the bar is set so low, having a lifelong mortgage feels like a birthday present. There does seem to be a preoccupation (maybe in the media most of all, or comment forums such as the Guardian) with surveying those less fortunate to make oneself feel better. It could border on a national obsession. I think it's likely caused by a vague sense of insecurity and fear. If there are so many people lower down the ladder than you, you must be doing ok!
I recall feeling really excited about the future in the late 90's, WTF happened?

Ahem, apart from me reaching middle age ..

I don't think the people in my OP are voting to be honest. They are what the media would call the underclass. Perhaps society needs an underclass so as to keep morale high in the rung just above.

You have a vote.

Use it.

The street food area is going to be outside the library in princess square. It'll be like Edinburgh street food which is amazing. I actually think it'll be really good for the area as at the moment it's home to a bunch of druggies doing deals in broad daylight

Surprisingly a lot of these bad areas further north have inexplicably expensive housing. Some of the newly knocked up apartments and homes in the north of England are now rubbing shoulders, price-wise, with London. You might get a larger property in the north but no solid guarantee of it nesting in a decent area.

May not be the same everywhere, I can only talk about my town.

It's also worth noting that the cost of living crisis has effectively been ongoing for at least 10 years, but has only been discussed recently because it's starting to really bite the middle classes.
They're more listened to and more likely to voice their objection in the first place.
Similar thing with immigration. It's been an issue for many years and the bad handling of mass immigration has ruined a lot of communities, but until now you'd be branded as a racist for bringing it up. Back when it used to only be poor estates where councils housed immugrants, now that the problem has grown large enough to affect the middle class, is it being taken seriously.

•County lines
•Depleted mental health support
•Crappy Tory education system
etc etc

@CatamaranViper thank you! I must admit that since the library was updated I’ve not been back. I use to go to a lovely vegetarian shop/ cafe back in the day.
Do like the new library, but I do get asked for money regularly if I alight bus at John Dobson street. So I now alight at Eldon Sq.
Because it unnerves me.

WTF happened in the late 90s? Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are what happened. Almost everything they did has had disastrous long term consequences for the UK and the Blair-lite Tories have just continued it.

My comment about being happy/excited in the 90's had nothing whatsoever to do with politics. Sorry!

My local towns are full of young men wearing jobbie catchers that can barely speak.
One town is heroin the other is spice.

what's a jobbie catcher?

You might think that...

fuck's sake, my life was good, things felt hopeful. I was young. If you want it to be about tony blair, I wont stop you

i found 'jobbie catchers' btw!

The town I live in is a pretty Georgian riverside town and has been popular with tourists but over the years shops were closing and we seemed to have empty shops replaced with mostly charity shops and takeaways
many things have contributed, cost of living, online shopping, less provision to help those that need mental health services etc.
however there seems to have been a little bit of regeneration with some new bars and eating places opening making the place a bit more social again. Many surrounding towns though seem to be run down and have an air of neglect about them. Times have definitely changed and not necessarily for the better

Most of our nature areas and footpaths are destroyed by off road bikes now, the council won't even bother locking the gates that stopped vehicles gaining access. We have a small nature reserve that keeps getting set on fire. Benches in the area are chained together by their feet, it's just so depressing. No police presence at all. There's this feeling that no authority cares.
**
This makes me feel so sad.

My (small) city isn't as bad as yours but there has been a significant decline in the past few years.

The police used to move homeless and drunk people on in the centre but now the homeless are actually living in shop doorways, often begging or accosting people.

At least two of the big hotels in the city are now being used for the homeless and refugees.

Loads of good shops have gone and are either empty or now vaping/betting shops.

The bus services are really shit but the council has almost doubled parking charges, further deterring people from going into the city centre.

Critical services have been cut (community meals for the elderly and vulnerable) but the council has an endless pot of money for new cycle lanes (many of which seem barely used).

Every newly tarmacked road is starting to go to pot(holes) after just a few months.

Roadworks everywhere all the time (often with no-one actually there working).

The police don't pick up the phones (to 111) or properly deal with crime and other complaints (not their fault - but it's just been cuts cuts cuts and services 're-focused').

There is a fairly huge and growing population of young people with on-going mental health problems who cannot work and hang around town the whole day long (this is not conjecture - I know these people and their situations).

It's sad and depressing for all involved.

YANBU OP.

@taxguru’s posts in particular struck a chord with me. Anti-car councils, of which there are sadly many, have been responsible for the death of many town centres. I think this business of new housing developments being required to have so many set aside for social housing hasn’t helped. From what I’ve seen even in pretty respectable villages the people who have moved into the social housing are often troublesome and troubled.

The fact astronomically high rates are charged seems to go in hand with the anti-car councils. I lived in a coastal town that had a reputation for being a bit rough back in the day though it depended which parts you lived and visited. A man we knew was stabbed to death walking through a park in the 90s near the town centre but he had some enemies.

The town centre was a decent place to shop until the 90s. It even had an independent family owned department store, which was great, a decent branch of Burton’s, shoe shops, jewellers, electronics stores. Now it’s like a lot of places - charity shops, fast food places, vape shops, barbers, salons, nail bars.
WH Smiths has recently left. I’m amazed Boots and Superdrug are still there. It lost New Look, Dorothy Perkins and Sports Direct all within a few months of each other and that was before Covid.

in short there’s bugger all to go there for really. Sadly the nearest retail parks aren’t up to much good either. You have to drive at least 15 minutes out of town to get to decent shops.

John Boughton (author of Municipal Dreams The Rise and Fall of Council Housing) on the welfarisation of council housing.

//www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-rise-and-fall-of-council-housing-56139

In the 1980s, residualisation may have been a partly unintended consequence of housing policies pursued with varying ideological intent

Since 2010, and more so since the return of single-party Conservative government in 2015, we’ve seen something further: welfarisation – ‘a conception of social housing as a very small, highly residualised sector catering only for the very poorest, and those with additional social “vulnerabilities”, on a short-term “ambulance” basis

^ Yep, this sums most of it up.

Oh, and no NHS dentists anymore (and no dentists for a lot of people). That could partly explain the teeth issue, as well as the fact that, if you're in a bad life situation and maybe can't get healthy food, brushing your teeth may not be a priority.