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.

Personally I’m against anyone getting WFA unless they are on under £20k and don’t own their own house - my view is why should it be relevant to older people many of whom have assets in their house or private pensions on top of state pensions but not young families or couples who are dealing with high mortgages, high private rents in many parts of the country, high childcare costs , very few non contributory pensions etc .

many have gained a reasonably substantial asset in their home by the luck of the market , or buying council homes for peanuts many years ago -if things are that tight that you need to make a fuss about£5 a week , draw some down on your house - a great many under 50s simply don’t have that option , nor are likely too at this rate, and no it’s not through fecklessness in the majority of cases-

to give you an example- friend of mine in her early 50s with teens was discussing moving away from the south east ( both jobs in London at least 2 or 3 days a week) to a cheaper area in the midlands enabling them to only have quite a small mortgage over10 years - parents in their early 80s aghast at this as ‘who will be around to help us’ and pop round multiple times a week - that was their main concern - they are at the level there will be IHT due ( just) and a fair bit of that is liquid assets, not just house - did they offer to give them a very large chunk to pay down their hefty mortgage or put away to increase their income with interest - ? Nah, not on your nelly!! Just piled on the guilt. Many old people are clueless when it comes to the cost of families , commuting, housing, pension contributions etc -because their circumstances were very different when working - no student loans, housing far more in line with income, non contributory pensions

Oh and I’m 63 by the way myself - but I see the cluelessness in more elderly relatives.

I feel for you. I have a similar situation and it’s miserable. Surrounded by people who don’t give a shit about the area and make it horrible to live in.

Like @Crikeyalmighty I agree that entitlement to the WFA needed to be restored for low-income pensioners, but moving the cut off up to £35k was just daft and extravagant. Capped at £18-20k, it would have helped those with tiny pensions, most of whom would have been the people of my mother's generation. Who BTW was a carer in mental health until she was 78, but who didn't have a spousal pension thanks to a nasty 1970s divorce, and didn't inherit from her parents either. Her finances were precarious for much of her life, which is why this particular Boomer has always been hell-bent on achieving and sustaining financial stability.

@lifeonmars100 if I find myself on my own at any point I will now be going for an over 55 flat - not because I’m decrepit but because living somewhere as you say would depress the shit out of me - I feel for you - I would rather rent and live in a slightly depressing but orderly ‘over 55’ situation in a reasonably nice area than a really grim area as you describe.

Yes exactly
I’m not convinced anyone else would have done anything differently if they had been there or had those opportunities

a lot of people were born before or during WW2 so had to put up with hardships and disruption that we haven’t experienced in our lifetimes

I could buy a one-bedroom flat in London, because I cashed in a pension from working overseas for the 5% deposit, and took an interest only variable rate mortgage for 3x my professional salary. Then came several years of negative equity in the early 1990s recession, when I subsidised the tenant's rent £200 per month for four years. Finally the situation turned more favourable and prices rose so I sold it, but the endowment never delivered the promises made and would have fallen 25-35% short of paying out the "expected" amount. I got £36k for what was projected to hit £56,500 if it had matured. I don't have the rose-tinted lenses to see any of this as greedy boomer profiteering; it felt extremely perilous at the time.

I have copied and pasted this post from the other thread I have been watching and posting on. It links my experience of how this horrid confrontational intergeneration venom is really unhelpful.

@Papyrophile

We had two endowment mortgages that never paid out anywhere near the expected amount and completely no advice from the bank on what do with what little money we did get when they matured. I thought we had to pay it off the mortgage but was told I could do what I liked so we had a conservatory added. Actually changing to an offset mortgage or paying a lump sum off would have been so much better

Just paid the mortgage off two months ago aged 68

Yes fortunately we changed to an offset and paid off our mortgage. The endowments paid out something as well but we overpaid for a while.

We did eventually get an offset and overpay our mortgage but we would have been better off doing it earlier in life. We've never been financially savvy