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!

Our village and local town has volunteer litter picks.
I already clean the dog shit from the path outside my house, I’m not doing anymore.
The local council/parish are doing the rewilding. I wouldn’t mind if was full of wild flowers but it’s just grass and clover. A couple of roundabout’s are covered in beautiful wild flowers.
Also the rubbish left from the bin collected/recyling.
My DH pulls the weeds outside our fence.
But the roads are dreadful full of pot holes, in fact they put in speed bumps but left the pot holes!

As pp have said when the grants from central government dried up the shortfall has to be made up. I grew up in the seventies in a city where there was excellent green spaces , immaculate libraries, beautiful museums, lots of sporting facilities a generally lovely place to grow up. Despite the spending of the council to regenerate it is not the place I grew up. I still remember the Library I visited as a child in a very working class area that I lived in . It was a beautiful building , with a highly polished floor and staircase, absolutely immaculate inside, the library I go to now is in grubby run down building,still fortunately open but only because it's run by volunteers,sadly I think that's the only way forward now despite eye watering council taxes. Councils spend capital expenditure on showcase schemes that don't last long whilst all around is crumbling, it's not working.

I was walking in my local woods today which is in an affluent area surrounded by expensive houses. There were bags of dog poo everywhere even though there were bins at all the exit points. It was disgusting & shocking that people still do this now. Most of the dog walkers were affluent locals so money doesn't equal class here.

It will be such a relief when the dog population recedes!

What does it have to do with council if people drop rubbish everywhere and don't pick up dogs poo? no amount of cleaning will help if you're surrounded by pigs.

Or is this Tories who came to you town to drop litter and got their dogs to poo?

I am so sick of seeing discarded, dirty, disposable nappies lying on our beaches here and along the seafront.

It's awful. I genuinely hate that I'm bringing my kids up here.
If I could easily move, we'd be off.

I was born and raised in The New Forest, little village called Hordle, and it was a lovely place to grow up.
Then we ended up moving to Bournemouth (Springbourne) when my mum remarried and I've been stuck here for various unavoidable reasons since.

I now live in Poole, so I've at least escaped Bournemouth for the time being, but it's still as bad as being in Bournemouth to me.
Same council, same problems, same lack of action being taken to tackle any of it.

All BCP care about is making tourism money.
They couldn't care less about the actual residents in the area.

And the worst part is, everybody who doesn't live here thinks we are so lucky to live here and almost don't believe you when you explain to them why it's actually horrible.
Why would we make it up?!

It's a cycle isn't it, once things like weeds are neglected some people take less interest in bothering to keep it nice and it sinks further into cesspittery. It's also been quite gradual so you don't notice as much until you go somewhere you haven't been in a while; viewing the state of most towns today even from 10 years ago would be shocked.

No wonder the country is in a state with you weeing outside your house. Don't you have a toilet?

I weed outside my house and all of my block of houses because I am a nutter and I think it looks awful .

I also bought a litter pick stick and pick anything up , usually what foxes have gotten into !

I'd rally a local litter clean up via fb if I was you!

Not you too! Stop weeing outside your house!

@MasterBeth
You're not funny. Sad.

I’m in favour of rewilding to some extent but agree it’s often just an excuse to not do what’s needed
While councils do have a role I find it utterly abhorrent that some people treat their communities with such disdain. If there’s nowhere to put your rubbish just take it with you ffs!

a more serious issue where I am is boarded up shops, apparently for years/decades. I just don’t understand why any landlord would be ok with having a vacant property for years on end. Just turn it into housing instead of digging up our green belt- councils should have powers to seize these buildings
and either turn into housing or knock it down and put in a bit of greenery.

Well, look at it this way; if something is not done about the dog shit problem, more and more areas (beaches, parks etc.) will probably start banning dogs, and you will have fewer places to take them for a walk.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣I read the first few words and thought you were sharing a tale about having a wee outside your house. Slow brain day - in my defence I seem to have pucked up a horrendous bug, and haven't slept for 2 nights.

We have similar problem in our town. I have discovered, however, that if I use their online reporting system they are quite good at coming out to deal with whichever thing I've reported. I think what they've done is severely cut back routine bin emptying, street cleaning etc... Instead they just react to complaints as and when they receive them. In their eyes no complaints equals no problem I think. So do try complaining about the road and park in question. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Yes councils should be cleaning our streets. But when they have to choose between school funding and street cleaning I know which I would prefer.

Our village is very much forgotten by the council, in 4 years of living here I have never seen any street cleaning. When things broke in our village playpark, there was a village fundraiser to replace it. Monthly organised litter picks, and many active pensioners who do it most days themselves, the local pub gives a free drink to anyone who produces a rubbish bag from litter picking. And the village is pretty much spotless.

Bit ridiculous that here we pay 3k council tax and get very little though, in London we payed 1.2k and much better services

Thanks, fun police

'I weed outside my house'. Took me a moment.

UK council tax bands urgently need reform, from what I’ve heard - so many places are paying mad amounts compared to a lot of far richer places in London.

Same here in deprived yorkshire town. The council used to have a team of street cleaners who would do the town centre and our road as we are central but this was supplemented by local litter picking volunteers, now it's only the volunteers left which would be OK but the litter has increased (literally take aways and picnics on our street chucked out of the windows, nitrous oxide containers regularly and vape/drug paraphernalia daily) which is bad but largely manageable.. what has really got to me recently is the dog shit. Someone clearly walks their dog up and down our road purely to shit and doesn't clear it up. It could be more than one person but it's all in a line so I suspect not. I refuse to pick it up and it's not something the council collect so it regularly gets to the point of having an entire row of poo including at times outside gates. It's really frustrating and although my kids are older we're a regular cut through to school and it must be a nightmare for those wjth small kids. I totally get the budget issues for councils but the point made above about lack of community pride and crap attracting crap is key. We live off an alley and the HMOs on our street regularly chuck furniture and bin bags out the back alley rather than in their massive bins at the front, so much money is wasted every 6 months clearing it up

@Alanfarthing

Councils spend capital expenditure on showcase schemes that don't last long whilst all around is crumbling, it's not working.

Nail on the head. Councils are still happily spending millions on capital schemes, consultations, etc., but won't spend on keeping up with basic amenities.

It's why we ended up with having to close a council run civic centre - they stopped doing basic maintenance and it ended up with legionnaires disease in it's water supply which, I think actually killed a couple of people. Then they had to spend millions to get it cleaned and water system changed. Basic maintenance and overview would have saved those people from dying.

Similarly, we had a brilliant swimming stadium, council stopped maintaining it, and it started springing leaks, the pump room equipment became rusty and corroded, and, inevitably, when it all failed, council wouldn't pay for it to be replaced, so they demolished it. Then they spent millions on building a new one that's not a patch on the old - smaller, fewer facilities, etc.

They just love the media publicity of something "shiny and new" but won't do the basic stuff that doesn't get their faces in the news!

@LadyGrinningSoul8517 our home is a few miles from BCP I go into Bournemouth as little as possible. It's shocking how run down it is and agree everything is about tourism and not about people who live there. Although the air show this year was poor quality we popped over in the evening to see a bit and they had traffic wardens ticketing cars all along the seafront so seems like they are using all opportunities to make some money. I don't want to live in the area and am counting down the months until we can move to my hometown

I agree with this. Leaving verges full of weeds just makes an area look scruffy.

Local councils might well claim they are doing it for nature but somehow I think saving money is the real reason.

It's perfectly possible to do a degree of rewilding in local parks but it actually requires knowhow and effort to do it so that it looks good.

It's hard to have pride in your neighbourhood if it looks so scruffy and it's just the start of a slippery slope with people dropping litter and not caring because the place looks a mess anyway.