Is our town a shithole..

[FroggletTowers]

Or is this happening anywhere else?

I have been discussing this with friends, family and colleagues recently so won't name our town for privacy reasons, but it is a regular, large town in England, UK.
Nothing particularly special or awful about it, previously.

Since the pandemic, the entire vibe has changed. Almost unrecognisable.
Yes, we have some heavy shop closures like many towns, but the council kept it looking decent as much as it could. Some nice buildings and nature areas, etc.

What stands out most, apart from the general vandalism and dog shit is the weird accumulation of male groups hanging around boozing in public.

So far they have taken over the local park, river walks and nature reserves. They often cluster beneath bridges or across paths where people like to run, cycle walk dogs or take children, making it less safe and filling these areas with waste. Off road bikes have ruined the nature reserves, so less people visit

Sadly the authorities don't seem to be doing much about it, it is as if these people don't have to abide by laws that the rest of us have to. Some buildings adjacent to these areas have windows put through on a regular basis, even in what you'd call 'nice' areas.
Many of them cluster at river bridges and block the path for others, most are very drunk or out of generally.
It isn't unusual to see a large man passed out across the pathway, blocking anyone getting past. If you had a pram or bike it would be really uncomfortable to have to rouse a large drunk at 2pm in the afternoon. Most are local men, with a growing amount of middle eastern men. The vast majority of them are unstable.

We see less women out cycling, walking or exercising now, and this encompasses both MC and WC areas. These people seem to have just multiplied and spread across the entire borough and have taken over all public space.
We live in a decent area that is now seeming to go downhill.
It isn't unusual to see day drinkers sat alone, surrounded by cans on a quiet residential street. And they won't move to let you past.

It's really depressing.

I live in a suburb of a large city. I always I have. Our area is quiet and safe We have parks a beach, canals and all generally safe. Lots of families, dog walkers and couples. There is a "dry beggar" whi sits outside a local supermarket and occasionally somebody will ask for money by the railway station. In the city itself, there areI sadly many visibly homeless people as with all large cities but ut is generally safe with some lovely areas and buildings, a lot of history. The one main issue in the country is people having children who shouldn't be and then dragging those poor children up or just being very ineffectual, disengaged or bad parents. Those kids grow up with zero respect ir boundaries and repeat the cycle. I also think drugs are a huge factor.

Still puzzled as to why you're repeatedly referring to me working and my job.

What has any of this got to do with my job?

Immigrants are mad to come here anyway. Unemployment rising due to Labour's policies, less money around so benefits will have to be reduced eventually and possible conscription if we end up having to go to war.

You’re obsessed with me.

I advised that doing some physical labour would be good for your mental health and stop your obsession. You go trawling through my past posts. It isn’t normal.

It’s up to you now. I can’t help you anymore.

Take care.

And if they live in Northern Ireland they can look forward to having their house firebombed....

@EasternStandard well maybe that wasn’t my finest moment - put the poster was giving off ‘get a real job’ vibes and insulting people- my one comment about Farage certainly didn’t balance off her mass personal insults to multiple posters .

I think she's drunk or just not very well. Her comments are absolutely barking.

Shh!!!🤫

You can’t say things like that (even if they’re true!)

Might get into trouble…

Those one million homes may be empty but the owners want it that way. A family member works in a government team whose job it is to contact the owners of empty premises offering to take them over spend money making them lettable lease them at a fair rent for ten years. The overwhelming response is no thanks.

You think that they will be driven out?

It's happened in NI.
They were moved to a sports centre temporarily and then that got firebombed, so they had to be moved again.

Really. I saw the sports centre bit . I do follow Ireland with my mother's family originating from the south.

I live in a large city and the area I live has changed completely in the last 10-15 years.
My local high street has huge problems, with homeless people smoking spice (although that might have decreased a bit recently) and people (who don’t look homeless) drinking openly in the day time and sitting on street corners. Coming back from the gym the other day I got an empty beer can chucked in my direction.
Parking laws have completely gone out the window, people just parking where they want.
Add in people whizzing along pavements on electric scooters and bikes it’s a bloody nightmare.
Lots of the shops are front for money laundering, we’ve had lots of police raids. The local restaurant got raided and had ten of thousands pounds worth of cocaine stashed up stairs!
We will be moving when kids have finished college and can drive.
We have friends who live in a very different type of area and to them these things are unthinkable. It’s certainly changing my views recently, I’m completely fed up of it.

We could train our own people. If the government was forced to stop being able to import trained people from anywhere around the world they would be forced to come to the table and negotiate with the working classes they have screwed over for the last 20 years since globalism got started.

They could start by removing the ridiculous charges on basic training needed for essential jobs such as healthcare. They could continue by providing living wages that pay for the cost of owning - owning , not renting - housing, which is a basic essential of human life. They will have to sort out the housing market - appropriate that Labour should be landed with that, to undo the errors of New Labour who screwed the housing market completely. They can fund that by taxing the huge numbers of billionaires in this country, taxing large unearned incomes and undoing the privilege of capital that neoliberalism provides. And by getting the baby boomers and landlords to finally pay their share.

And yes, we are full. There is little food security here and it will only get worse. Our natural landscape has take a dive. Un coincidentally, over that same time period.

@OrdinaryMagicOfAcorns "And by getting the baby boomers and landlords to finally pay their share."

And what is the "share" that you refer to and how should it be calculated ?

"taxing the huge numbers of billionaires in this country," so how many of these do you think there are?

As I said, appropriate that Labour are the ones to have to fix that since they started intergenerational inequality - that is a historical fact.

No it isn't.

The idea that the Labour party started intergenerational inequality is not accurate. Intergenerational inequality is a complex issue with roots going way back, and it's not something that can be attributed to a single party or year.

While the Labour party may have implemented policies that had unintended consequences or failed to address existing inequalities, the issues of wealth, income, and opportunity disparities between generations have been building for decades.

on the news it was talking about water shortages becoming more common in future in UK but let’s keep allowing more and more migrants to come here and build on our green spaces which may help with water conservation

just great

Yes there had been growing inequality through the 80s. But Blair’s time is when the need for inheritance became absolute due to the fuckup they made of training, the housing market, council funding, public service funding - PPI - and far too much leeway given to both the rich and the feckless. It was New Labour that destroyed the idea of working for a living among those not born to family support.

You seem to have a vested political interest in denying facts. My family were traditional Labour and I was left-wing. Until Blair had finished with me and spat me and all of my generation who did not come from nice middle classes onto the scrap heap.

I'm still waiting for @OrdinaryMagicOfAcorns to tell us Baby Boomers why they think we aren't "paying our share" 😀

That’s not difficult . They are the group that gets hand outs. They benefitted from selling off public services and from fucking us younger ones over, laughing and joking and abusing power structures to shut us up as they spent their gains on early retirement and part time hobbies.

Screw ‘em. They - and the early gen X who enjoyed the same social co tracts and privilege - are the richest generation that’s ever existed, at the expense mainly of those directly behind them.

"They are the group that gets hand outs."
What handouts? I've never had any "handouts".

"They benefitted from selling off public services and from fucking us younger ones over,"
How? My husband worked for British Rail and says the worst thing that the government ever did was to privatise the railways. How are we to blame for what the government did?

"laughing and joking and abusing power structures to shut us up" I have no idea what that means.

You seem very bitter but still haven't explained why you think Boomers aren't "paying our way". and how and what we should pay ??

The group that gets handouts are those claiming housing benefit, UC or PIP. Don't think it is generation related.

@OrdinaryMagicOfAcorns I’m not quite sure where to start with your posts as they are absolutely cuckoo , and I’m a centre/left voter - how on earth would you link wages to mean that anyone could buy anywhere given the huge difference between say London and the south east or the north east ? My son and his partner live in East Midlands, have a perfectly nice semi on very average wages bought a couple of years ago - my youngest son in London (27) and partner - no chance but could do shared ownership or possibly a 2 bed flat 20 miles out at a push - he doesn’t at the moment want to do that so they rent a nice flat in a nice location. They are both on just above average wages and working since he was 17 ( did an apprenticeship)

yes I think it’s tough for young people, very tough and I help him out as best as I can when needed- but I put a lot of the blame for issues far further back than you do - it was Thatcher who sold off social housing, Thatcher who bought into the greed is good mentality and sold off public services. These things are very very hard to just reverse once in private hands, it takes time and hard cash .

putting the blame on ordinary slightly older people is very unwise, they didn’t make those decisions, they had no political clout and many of us have had zero in the way of handouts- we never have had any and are 63 and 60 - and nope we don’t own either because the time we were earning enough we were beyond it being easy to get a mortgage and my H is bloody fussy where we live -in theory we are likely to inherit and would buy then . But this is again a choice, - we have owned before but sold up to build a business.

the only thing I agree with you on is training - I think a lot of training opportunities should be free or low cost - however even then you are wrong in thinking people would take it up in droves, plenty would, plenty wouldn’t - minimum wage is paying roughly £22k these days and yet there are many who would rather struggle on benefits than take up minimum wage jobs because they perceive they will be little better off and they may well be right -
what is needed is concerted building of decent quality social housing that is available across the board giving people the possibility of actually saving to buy on the open market and decent homes for those never in a position to buy .

what is your level of enough money? If you pay £18 an hour then basically an awful lot of both private and public sector jobs are below this - which then creates more pressure on the public purse and more private business going bust !! When we lived in Denmark minimum was around £13 to £14 - but the difference was high tax, cheap childcare, no council tax, good health provision, tons of subsidised good quality social housing - people didn’t actually rush to buy -

you are thinking about things arse over backwards .