To be upset our town is so run down now?

[Blueybanditbingochilli]

Day off with my kids (toddler and 5 year old) so thought I would take them to the park for a picnic. It’s a walk I’ve done a thousand times this year, yet today it really sank in what a dump our town now is.

About 3 or 4 times on the (short) walk, we had to detour into the road as the weeds and hedges by the pavement are so overgrown they’re literally impassable.

Rubbish, nappies and disposable vapes lying in the road/walkways. There was a kind of ‘tide’ of rubbish against the wall adjacent to the path - crisp packets, tissues, cigarette ends.

Just before we got there I felt something squelch in my flip flops (yep), looked down and clearly some dog poo had somehow flicked into my shoe and I had trodden it in 🤮 it sounds funny but it really isn’t when it happens to you! There was loads of dog poo in general that I constantly had to remind DC1 to avoid.

It just looks so run down. I understand councils have had cuts but this isn’t a little bit worse, it’s a lot worse. Where is all the money going? I honestly can’t see where it’s being spent because the entire town is a dump. Of course I blame the Tories (and know it’ll take time for things to improve yada yada) but honestly it looks like we have no council at all.

Just a rant!

It doesn't sound like your local councils fault, it sounds like your neighbours/local community are dirty fuckers.

Where i live if you were spotted dropping rubbish/nappies/vapes/dog poo, you'd get loudly named and shamed on the community whatsapp. But no one does anyway. Occasionally dog poo results in a huge spate of people watching for who's letting their dog crap untended and it tends to stop people thinking they'll get away with it.

Why are people leaving nappies, nasty.

So you have no street cleaning etc as it simply isn’t needed?

Entitlement and a lack of consequence. I saw my neighbour get out of his car yesterday at 6.30 am and tip the contents of his lunch box onto the pavement. Even though he had to walk past a bin to get to his front door 🤢 you can tell the council owned properties on our estate becouse the don’t cut their hedges and leave shit in their front garden. Council ten tents should be fined for trashing their front gardens, same as private tenants . But I really think the lack of respect and consequences is a much bigger problem, don’t know how to adress that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hi agree with this. Half the public make the mess and the other half are community minded and busy clearing up. It's depressing. People should cut their hedges on both sides, not just one.

Glad it wasn't just me - I thought that was extremely brave admitting to personally being a big part of the problem

All the money is going into a bottomless pit (aka adult social care)
We're all doomed.

British people are lazy, entitled slobs.

Is the Keep Britain Tidy campaign still on the go?

Hit the nail on the head. I have never understood why a country that is so beautiful is treated like dirt by it's inhabitants. I don't know where we lost our pride. It really upsets me at times

It’s the same where I live.

I pick up my dog's poo. I am not paying a tax that pays for people who can't be arsed to carry out the most minor of dog ownership responsibilities.

I’m quite upset about it today. I really resent working 40 hours a week and tax paying to not even have clear pavements to walk down. The overgrowth here is actually hazardous - it may not sound like a big deal but having to wheel a buggy and a small child into a main road at rush hour on a bend every day because the pavement is permanently impassable is absolutely infuriating. It’s a popular road to access the school and many children walk along it, it’s an accident waiting to happen.

Why they’re ploughing all the money into one or two areas while neglecting public safety is beyond me.

I also have a dog and have never ever once left her poo, I even carry wipes for smears (sorry) 🤮

I would actually pay a reasonable sum for pavement cleaning and suck it up as the owner of a dog.

All tax payers subsidise other people. That is how the system works.

Alternatively, you could see it as a kind of ULEZ charge as dogs are not very good for the environment.

Our local council's website has a 'Report It' function where you can report bins that need emptying, overgrown trees/bushes, graffiti, dirty road signs and so on. I make a point of reporting issues on this - it can be a pain but I generally find things get done - or if they don't, I feel better able to complain having already reported it to them.

I also follow our local councillor on Facebook and report issues to her too. This can often get quick results as they want to be able to shout about successes to keep your vote. Might be worth a try.

Our (central London) council has been rewilding our neighbourhood as an experiment.

no longer using herbicides, creating natural corridors, planting rain gardens, and allowing weeds to grow.

locals are encouraged to manually pull some weeds, street maintenance council staff manually Pulling weeds.

I would prefer if residents didn’t create as much littler, were more active in picking up dog shit.
this is incivic behaviour.
and it infuriates me that the council is expected to spend so much on putting mess in bins.
when we should do it .

There don't seem to be any generally agreed standards of behaviour ground rules like there used to be?

I could say the same about our town, but 20 years ago. It's not really got any worse - it was a dump then, and it's a dump now. It's a run down seaside resort where "undesirables" were bussed in to occupy the empty bed sits and old guest houses in the 90s (newly released ex offenders, homeless, etc). But no support was provided for them, no jobs, so we've been plagued by anti social behaviour ever since, i.e. drugs, alcoholics, street crime, burglaries, etc. Ideally entire blocks of the old boarding houses need to be demolished and replaced with family homes. Lots are already uninhabitable, burned out, etc., and are just left to rot and fester with rats, pigeons, etc. I don't really think anyone would notice that it may be worse now than it was 20 years ago. Certainly the road I travel on several times per week to see my mother in law was full of potholes 20 years ago, and is still full of potholes.

It sounds like other parts of the country are "catching up" with the kind of neglect we've been suffering for a couple of decades.

I feel so strongly about the hazards of dog poop for young children I’ve started carrying poopbags in my pocket and just pick it up myself.
And I don’t even have a dog.

Other countries in the EU manage by:

-Higher taxes on income
-Getting miscreants & asylum seekers to do street work (community punishments) (see Denmark, Germany, Sweden etc)

• making dogs be registered and pay a dog tax along with health insurance (see Germany and Gibraltar) which means that the poo can be DNA analysed and the owner is sent a bill in the post. Which however requires ID cards and registration at the local council buildings. We don't do that in the UK.
• people some EU countries are obliged to take care of the ground outside of their purchased property

The list goes on!

Our town is the same. It's looking seriously run down nowadays. It's sad as when we first moved here 10 years ago it was a thriving market town with lovely independent shops as well as some high street shops (new look, Dorothy Perkins, Topshop, Clarks, Edinburgh wool mill, Wilco's ect). Now half the shops are boarded up, only new look is left on our high street of our high street shops and it is a sad affair nowadays. We've lost some amazing independent shops and there are only 2 of the 15 clinging on.

It's all cafes, nail bars, vape shops, hair dressers, charity shops and pound shops now. At least 7 of the shops on our high street are obviously money laundering fronts. We have 2 "desert shops" that open 3 random hours a day, order by direct WhatsApp or on FB messenger only, free delivery within a 20 mile radius. A nail bar with blocked out windows that has £7.00 nail deals with 10 east Asian staff and 2 grumpy looking men who sit at the side of the shop. 3 random junk shops where everything is either 50p or £20 and no inbetween. An "American candy" shop that never has anyone in and keeps very odd hours.

Then there are all the bottles, cans, broken glass, used needles scattered about in all the children's play parks and down various alleyways. Almost every week there are posts on the local FB warning of glass or needles on the children's play park equipment. All the bins are usually overflowing. Dog poo everywhere. The pavements are cracked, wobbly or covered in either bird or dog poo. All the verges are overgrown, at one point the grass was knee high.

Our council has declared itself bankrupt.

All the money from our council tax basically goes on schools, social care, emergency temporary accommodation, bins and only what isn't illegal to not provide. All extras are gone. It's an absolute mess.

Happy to say that our town has really smartened everything up, verges, deep clean street cleaning, lots of new planters, repainting railings and benches, only commented today how smart it all looks.

Its terrible when an area goes down the pan I used to live somewhere where that happened and the decline has been terrible.

The pavements round my way are a mess with weeds. I have wondered about trying to do some weeding but so much of it is a problem. Does anyone know if there are any weed killers that would be acceptable to use? It would be easier but doesn’t feel like something that shoiuld be used without permission.

What about the COUNCILS trees hedges and bushes though? That's what we have issues with. This whole thread has gone on about litter ( we don't have a bit problem with that) but no one is commenting on the council not keeping their own property tidy

They're just using the excuse of protecting wildlife and making habitats for bees and insects. Trouble is when they do that at road junctions, roundabouts, etc., it's just causing traffic accidents as drivers can't see the road anymore when the weeds are several feet high. They should at least cut the strips alongside roads and junctions, but that costs money, so they won't do it.

Re litter picking, the council wagons do the same routes every day yet never deviate. So whilst some streets are litter free, others are strewn with litter. Why can't they just do different routes on different days and cover a bigger area. Seems stupid to have a wagon go down a road to pick up a couple of cans (left that day), when on a nearby road there are dozens of cans left over several months. It makes no sense.

I know councils have their spending cut, but they don't seem to be able to think outside the box and spread the spending more widely. They're just lazily doing either what they've always done, or stopped doing other things entirely. No sign of any just changing what they've done. Like I say, by sweeping a street once a week allowing them to sweep 6 other streets once a week, rather than sweeping the same streets every day.