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 taxation could have a massive impact but I think the lobby power of the multinationals and supermarkets are more powerful than our democratically elected politicians.
'Trickle down' is a massive lie IMO.
🐂 💩

Yes definitely the case

I don't have the answers, especially regarding the drug problem.

In general I suggest we vote in politicians who have some answers. Some that have the will to make change, a concern for the poorest as well as the richest in society, some long term vision, who don't seek to undermine all public services in order to pay shareholders dividends. Politicians who don't think austerity - which harms the poorest the most - is the answer.

We need more police, better NHS services, better roads, more money and a long term plan for education, a programme of maintenence for our public building like hospitals and schools, a fair tax system, more housing.....we need a change.

Very true. It's a form of americanisation really, as most of the states are as you describe, many people doing well, and loads languishing in squalor. Loads of run down ghettos. We all know what happens to the people over there 'doing well' when they're hit by an inevitable cancer diagnosis though. I wonder if the people over here 'doing well' will be just as happy once the remnants of our public services are paid/ insured for. Will they be as smug when Nana can't get insured because she had some dodgy cells removed in 1972.

Do you not think people like Tony Blair and Peter Mendleson were also busy creaming wealth off the population as well though. I think they are all pretty awful

This is it in a nutshell, nobody in government or even the west in general are willing to try anything different. They do the same things year after year and expect a different outcome.

A PP was trying to blame Tory governments but they are all the same.. one of the problems with drugs is the new types that are appearing like Fentanyl ( the US is in China trying to stop the supply).

What could a labour government have done about this? Even the Democrats in the USA have a massive issue with it so just saying it's the Tories fault and none happened when Brown was PM is childish.

@Lagoony I wonder if the people over here 'doing well' will be just as happy once the remnants of our public services are paid/ insured for. Will they be as smug when Nana can't get insured because she had some dodgy cells removed in 1972.

Quite.

Private medical insurance is no help when you need an ambulance.
Even the richest person is bleeding on the hard shoulder waiting 40 minutes for an NHS ambulance.

BUPA doesn't provide a ambulance that follows you everywhere carrying your monogrammed dressing gown and slippers.

Too many people have taken the view over the years that if something - i.e a public service - isn’t of value to them, it has no value at all. We are a very selfish society, it’s as clear as the nose on your face when you read comments on MN about anything. There is very little solidarity other than when it comes to LTB!

But we have had a Tory government for the last 15 years and they have done NOTHING to stop the decline. I cannot name one thing and have asked that the question, "What have they done for us?" several times on MN and never had an answer. Even if it's not their fault, which it in part is, what have they done for us to help society in the last 15 years?

What a Labour government could have done is what they did last time. They brought in a whole raft of policies, laws and initiatives that made life better for all. E.g. More nurses, more police, more teachers, SureStart, shorter NHS waiting lists, doubled funding for pupils, brought 100s of 1,000s of pensioners and children out of poverty, had the cleanest rivers, seas and air ever, free nursery places, free breast screening for older women, reduced youth unemployment by 75% and on an on.

They are not all the same.

Perhaps moderately well off people are sick of paying for other people who don't contribute to pay for public services ever and they have scrimped and saved in earlier life to achieve this rather than be wasteful.

I don't mean disabled people who cannot work

@LiquoriceAllsort2 With regard to nobody in the west trying to do any different you only have to look to Scandinavia to see that isn't true.

There are already all these things in the town close to us but the alot of addicts don't engage with services.

The decline to towns has been going on for the last 50 years plus.

Alistair Darling said himself that they would have had to curb spending drastically if they had got in in 2010.

I am no fan of any party so I have no axe to grind as I think they are all out of their depth with ideas to help and after Liz Truss nobody is going to even try to alter things now .

Look what Javier Milei has achieved in Argentina since coming to power but as someone said up thread all the things would never happen here due to lobby groups etc.

What percentage of the able UK population do you think never contribute to public services?

I'm a moderately well off person, not because I was born rich because I worked and scrimped and saved.

I've depended on the NHS, the education system and was born in a council house.

Once I couldn't afford to contribute, but I have benefitted from state provision and would like others in need to do so too - otherwise what is the point of society?

Yes I totally agree but there are some who don't or work cash in hand and claim benefits or pretend they are single

Spending patterns have changed too. For instance people are more willing to spend money on holidays than clothes. We ‘d shop where it’s cheap and convenient (supermarkets, online) than the more expensive independent shop.

Very small population and wealth from oil reserves vastly increasing GDP per capita

Let's see how Sweden do in the next 10 years

@Churchview sorry, that last post was supposed to stand on its own, not be a response to yours. I accept your point about EU funding but it was in the main, fluffy cherry on top window dressing. It in no way made up for the decimation of industry in these places. In binary thinking, we were banging a lot more in to EU coffers than we were getting back. It’s a ridiculous set up, frankly. The spoils of membership were not fairly shared and no amount of new local road links was going to change that.

It's such a messy problem and I don't think any political party will fix it unless they really focus on it rather than focusing on what they think will keep them in power.

I've read some studies of California that link a softer approach to crime to a rise in problems and more crime, so we probably need to be harder on crime but then invest in services as well which I can't see any party doing.

My shop fell under the business rates threshold in our area. But even without that overhead, if you have no customers you're stuffed. You still have to pay insurance, buy stock and pay rent before you can pay yourself.

The online behemoths are hugely to blame. Platforms like Temu, Wish and Shein sell directly to the public at cheaper prices, even with shipping, the same items I was being charged double for by my wholesalers. People would photograph things on my shelves and find them cheaper online in front of my face.

It was suggested I buy from those Platforms and sell the items in my shop. But I'd still have to double the price to make a profit. It's sheer madness.

And don't get me started on the amount of informal social work I ended up doing for vulnerable people coming in and sharing their woes.

I was advised to do markets and events but without transport or any guarantee that I would recoup the costs of a pitch or extra stock it was a gamble I couldn't take.

I should do ebay, Vinted and Tiktok. All of which require admin, and don't guarantee steady cash flow.

This is why small independent retailers are folding left right and centre. When giants like M&S pull out of a town like mine in favour of out of town shopping complexes you know the writing is on the wall.

Everything has gotten too darn complicated.

All those who think things are going to get better under Labour will get a shock. And they will be even worse in other areas (ie will be very authoritarian like the Scottish government). Things will only change when people stop being apathetic -I personally think the whole system will collapse in the next ten years as successive govts and especially the tories have got us into massive debt with little to show for it and we are in abit of a doom spiral. Sorry to be so negative.

As a previous poster said, a lot of people at the bottom were forced to war and into asylums until recently. They didn't survive or weren't seen, now they are more visible and with welfare cuts, most can't be helped.

That’s what things were like in the 80s-90s. Labour came along and cleared everything up with basic social programmes, but then Cameron came in and closed it’s all down to “save money” while refusing to acknowledge that government providing parental support and youth centres is a lot cheaper than the social, health and criminal justice costs of letting kids fall through the net.

Yes it is a shame about the youth clubs and other services

I agree it would be better and would help but I do think people need to help themselves as well

I think the UK is the world's fifth or ninth largest economy (depending on how it is measured). Yet, this is really hard to believe if you look around the small town where I live, and the cluster of small towns around it.

We have derelict housing, decaying sites of former industries, that have never been properly developed, a profusion of badly built houses and the council tries to scrape back its debt through council tax. The town centre has shops that match the economy: Poundland, Home Bargains, B&M and a profusion of charity shops, which seem expensive in comparison with the budget stores.

The people look run down, poor, stressed. There are one or two industries such as the salad packing plant and the flour mill, but most work seems to be warehousing or delivery driving.

There is a problem with substance abuse. It is an open problem, and the people who are caught up in addiction just blend in with the rest of the population.

The sadness is not that places like this exist, but that the poverty seems to be getting worse. There are no NHS dental services in the town. I know because I have been searching for them. There are a large number of people with MH issues. Underemployment, poverty, inadequate housing and a sense of hopelessness affects physical and mental health.

I may be controversial in stating this, but in my opinion, based on my experience of living and working in a number of run down small towns like the one in which I currently live, Britain is not a first world country for the vast majority of the population.