To think our towns and cities are just so run down lately, and our standard of living has decreased significantly?

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I don't know if I'm just feeling a bit down and bitter lately but I just feel like lately our country seems to have gotten very run down. I went out into town today and couldn't help but notice how grotty and rundown everything looks. Litter everywhere, security guards everywhere - in nearly every clothing shop there is security on the door now, security wandering up and down the high street. It makes you feel really unsafe but they must be there for a reason now? Shops are dirty; filthy floors and used Starbucks cups just left off the shelf for some poor worker to clean up. Clothes for sale that are covered in makeup stains. I just found it really depressing. It's just not one town either, I've noticed it nearly everywhere I've been. I'm in my late 20s so it's not like I've had decades of life experience to draw from and I have a rose-tinted view of yesteryear, but it seems that in the last 5ish years things have really declined.

I don't shop online because it's cheap. I shop online because it's quick and convenient, because there's far more choice, because I don't enjoy shopping and don't have time to do it, and because it's an hour and a half's drive to a city with a big range of shops.

We could never have afforded the necessary new trains over the past 2/3 decades without privatisation. Our train stock was antiquated and non compliant with disabillity laws and non compliant with waste laws and non compliant with H&S laws, so basically the entire stock of coaches needed to be replaced. The only way to afford that was private sector finance as nearly everything on the railways today is leased. Every single coach costs tens of millions. The taxpayer could never have funded that.

I agree. Even working in a kebab shop entitles an immigrant to come and work here. Fair enough for immigration for skilled/professional roles where we have shortages, such as doctors and nurses, but we really don't need to import people to work in kebab shops!

https://x.com/StevenEdginton/status/1899817030234091891

No they don’t ! There’s nothing s no such scheme that forces people to work for free

@CrispEater2000 I missed that one- where did you get that nonsense from?

@taxguru don’t you remember Johnson going on about ‘curry chefs’ - clearly doesn’t realise curry is a recipe - absolutely any nationality can make it - will blow his mind to realise I can make some fantastic curry’s and pasta dishes!!

@TempestTost I don’t want cheap food - so maybe ‘not all’ - I want good quality food and am not wealthy but I meal plan well and don’t buy snacks or junk as no kids at home anymore

But it has such lovely things and so much potential. Last time I went there was a café in the Glass pavilion by the Opera house. Beautiful structure, but the café was a very desultory canteen-type one. In that setting, they could go full Georgian and do lovely afternoon teas and things. Surely it would be a money spinner?

The biggest jump has been since Covid lockdowns. There was a trickle towards things been less good before then but Covid really let the deluge free.

I think having those few years where people went out less pushed more people to shop online and the increase in rates the shops have had to pay means they aren’t affordable to keep open.

I barely went out when we had to wear masks as I found them so uncomfortable to deal with as my glasses were always misting up. By the time I started venturing out more again the high st decline was in full swing.

Everything has felt harder work - things needed prebooking, everything is going cashless, you can’t browse shops in the way you could when I was a teen as there are hardly any shops to browse now so feels like a wasted effort to wander around town.

I think the biggest problem was cost of living coming right on the back of Covid restrictions ending. Brexit was done at a really bad time as it was done at the end of Covid where the whole world had changed at once. We had too many changes in one go and still finding our way through.

i barely went out when we had to wear masks as I found them so uncomfortable to deal with as my glasses were always misting up. By the time I started venturing out more again the high st decline was in full swing.
Everything has felt harder work - things needed prebooking, everything is going cashless, you can’t browse shops in the way you could when I was a teen as there are hardly any shops to browse now so feels like a wasted effort to wander around town.

Completely agree. Masks were hideous for those with glasses, so I just didn’t go out/use the shops. And now they say it was pointless anyway. Great.

And all spontaneity vanished. I can’t just decide to go swimming - I have to prebook online and if I try to just walk up the cashiers look at me like I have two heads. I can’t just go to a restaurant and be assured of getting a table if one is free - often you have to pre book and half the time I then have to order using my phone.

I’m hard of hearing, so trying to understand cashiers behind Perspex is a nightmare, so I just feel unwelcome and unhappy. That’s if there’s a cashier at all - often I’m in a shop desperately trying to figure out the self service till (which I’m ok with in a supermarket but in a clothes shop I inevitably can’t find the security tags or just can’t get the damn things off anyway).

We are fortunate to still have decent shops/a good range, but it’s so stressful to deal with as an experience, I’d rather peacefully shop online and have it sent to me.

Unless it’s books. Those shops are still nice and have real tills with people at them. I’ll spend half a day in those.

I was in central London recently and thought how clean and smart it was compared to Bristol where we have littering, rubbish, potholes, unkept and scrufft green spaces / trees. Outside of the town - more littering and fly tipping is quite normal

More dog shit in London though..

Yes, letting billionaires and hugely profitable corporations off the hook is hollowing out national wealth and that of the middle classes.

Honestly I used up think it a bit 'turkeys voting for Christmas' someone like me being anticapitalist but now it's just starting to seem sensible. DH and I are still doing OK kind of despite the system but our kids' future is screwed unless things change massively.

OK so it does look like the scheme was stopped and made voluntary after this legal claim. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/12/graduate-poundland-government-work-schemes

So while the person received benefits, technically not working for "free", Poundland (and other companies) were receiving free staffing.

While I'm not against people doing something useful to continue to receive benefits, in the right circumstances, it should be for the benefit of local communities and not private companies.

I think the real issue is widening inequality in our society. At the same time as our population has aged, the wealthiest have become incredibly wealthy. One of the reasons people are not having children is because they feel they can’t afford it. Perhaps the issue is not so much that there are more older people, but that more and more assets are concentrated in fewer hands, leaving most of us to scrap over the crumbs.

I don’t agree that the private sector is by definition better at running businesses. I don’t think the public sector was worse at running water companies than the private sector have turned out to be. I don’t recall there being poo in our rivers when I was a child. Some things should not be privatised, and I think basic state infrastructure is one of those things.

Not nonsense but it does look like the scheme has been scrapped since my knowledge of it, see my previous post, I do apologise for not keeping up to date with policy on that one.

@CrispEater2000 I’m horrified it was ever ‘brought in’. - where’s the incentive to recruit if you can just get folks for free- and how can you actually be looking for paid work whilst working elsewhere? Don’t apologise, bloody hard to keep up and some of the press only emphasise stuff that fits their agenda.

I get the feeling that whilst wealthy places or those with lots of tourists are still fine, the rest aren't.

We live in one of the nicest parts, tiny, parts of South East London and it's as nicas and lovely in the 90s. However, elsewhere is still grim or getting grimmer.

Been to York and Oxford, and again both seem fine in the center. Last time I went to Manchester I was quite taken aback by how much worse it has got over the last few years. It's very depressing.

I do feel embarrassed when our European friends come over, fine our part is ok, central London is sort of fine but wouldn't want them to go to that many other places as it does get pretty grim, pretty quickly.

Thanks. My knowledge comes from a family member who was sent on back to work schemes after being out of work for a while. They were bright and did want to work, but found age and being out of work for a while raising kids went against them.

Poundland and other retailers who participated said they didn't use unpaid workers to replace recruiting employed staff, but I'm not so sure on that one.

The family member who told me about it said it was put to her on the premise there could be employment at the end of it, but that was rare given the retailer could just rely on another cohort coming through.

To be fair I'm glad to read that's stopped now.

@CrispEater2000 yep - it’s like YTS for adults. Thing is in theory I can see it’s good to get people back to work and in the routine of it - the problem is most business owners would simply use it as a constant source of cheap labour and just keep replacing. After all ‘business’ (on the whole) is in it to make money , not deal with societal issues

Part of the problem is we have too many shops that aren't needed.

My small town had far, far too many high street retail spaces for the modern world. It was based on shopping/buying as a major hobby - not something we should encourage. We should be trying to shop less and consume less. We don't need endless crappy tat shops or charity shops, or reams and reams of clothing stores for people to mindlessly browse.

We need the service providers you can't buy online. Restaurants and cafes. Hairdressers. Pharmacies. A small shop selling small/low value items where its not worth the cost or environmental impact of delivering - stationery, sweets, birthday cards, magazines.

I've love to see some every day food suppliers that aren't trying to target high margin/luxury. Our local butcher is extortionately expensive, drives round in a brand new range rover and has a huge house. I'd buy from a butcher if it was more every day and sold basics like beef mince, sausages and chicken fillets.

However I also think there's been a decline in the things we do need - community/public services. A library, doctors & dentists, opticians. Sports facilities/centres. Event spaces/small theatres to promote local music/drama/dance/comedy etc.

I think the real issue is widening inequality in our society. At the same time as our population has aged, the wealthiest have become incredibly wealthy. One of the reasons people are not having children is because they feel they can’t afford it. Perhaps the issue is not so much that there are more older people, but that more and more assets are concentrated in fewer hands, leaving most of us to scrap over the crumbs.
I don’t agree that the private sector is by definition better at running businesses. I don’t think the public sector was worse at running water companies than the private sector have turned out to be. I don’t recall there being poo in our rivers when I was a child. Some things should not be privatised, and I think basic state infrastructure is one of those things.

All very true. I live in a wealthy area and the volume of families jetting off on 3 or 4 expensive holidays a year, living in huge posh houses, driving very expensive cars, is enormous. While down the road in poorer towns teachers and nurses are struggling.

It’s labour run where I live and every single time people vote for them despite them doing nothing to improve the area. Potholes everywhere, police non existent. It’s a joke. I’ll never ever vote Labour and no, I will never vote reform either.

Same here, I live in a rough area, it used to be what I would call "rough but lively" with lots of community stuff going on, raised my child here and it was fine, lots to do if you had a little one and it was clean, scruffy but clean. Of course austerity took its toll, the already less affluent areas are hit harder, faster and deeper by austerity. These days where I live is vile, today I am psyching myself up to go to the local supermarket. My walk there will take me past an off-licence which always has a large group of drunken males outside who leer and call out obsenities to passing women. Fortunately I am older and not on their radar but it still incenses me. I have complained about it numerous times to the council and suggested that they revoke the shop owner's alcohol licence but a year on nothing has been done. I will pass numerous flytips, groups of what I guess are jobless males who sit on the walls outside semi-decaying HMOs spitting out sunflower seed shells all over the pavement and shouting at passers by. I will dodge ebikes, scooters and push bikes powering down the pavement even though they are meant to be ridden on the road. Heaven help you if you challenge anyone as you leap out of their way. I did once and got a mouthful of foul abuse. Speaking of which a friend of mine asked a group of males who spend most of the day outside her corner shop to move so she could get through the door was told "go fuck yourself you old bitch cunt". When I get to the supermarket I have the choice of walking in via the back way past all the crack users or the front way past all the drinkers. I try to go before 3pm as by that time the fighting will have started. What really angers me is that young children are exposed to this blantatly illegal and anti-social behaviour on a daily basis as they see it on their way home from school. I used to report stuff to the police and the council but nothing changes apart from it getting worse. The local banks have of course closed down and one has homeless people bedding down in the doorway, they even had an open fire there at one time and were cooking on it! We have some ok cafes but you can be in there having a coffee and beggers sometimes come in and hassle people. I have even seen them walking into the road and knocking on car windows and asking for money. It feels desperate and scary

@lifeonmars100 wow that sounds awful - we pay a bloody fortune to live where we do and are lucky to be able to do so - going back to my original home town last October had the same feeling as you describe - not quite as bad but still totally crap and I thanked my lucky stars I no longer lived there for last 34 years

@Boredlass the problem is most Labour controlled areas have more issues ‘that cost’ than the average Tory or Lib Dem area- so a lot of this is down to local authority funding or lack of it