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.

Ah, well, since neither you nor I should have to stick around to endure such an environment permanently, perhaps we could discuss it with some emotional intelligence?

I don't enjoy witnessing these places going to hell.
Why are these man seemingly multiplying, and where does it go next?

I’m in a London suburb. There are pockets of ASB - around Mac Donald’s/ Wetherspoons, occasional youth ASB. There’s a fair bit of litter tho it's not bad for dog poo. There are some empty shops but some nice shops remain. There is crime but I’d say the crime rate is lower than average. Your town does sound like a shithole relative to mine. And we do have a hotel of asylum seekers, a YMCA, some sheltered houses, and a women’s refuge plus a LOT of immigrants with it being London. So it’s not a homogenous rich, white area it’s very mixed.

What I think maybe makes the difference is that there are enough people who have pride in their town relative to those who don’t. They pick up litter, volunteer to tidy parks, spend money in the high street, report crime and ASB and follow it up with authorities, have street WhatsApp groups and coordinate locally, share ring doorbell footage etc. When the balance tips and no one cares any more that maybe makes the difference.

That sounds depressing. Presuming there must be multiple local employers that have closed or moved away over the years? People moving away if they come into money?
Local services for young folks being cut?

The groups of men drinking, I can imagine they may live in HMOs or hostels that have opened nearby? Or just live alone and have an alcohol habit but can no longer afford the pub.

Drinking outdoors doesn't bother me as long as there's not lots of ASB relating to it.

I am lucky I guess in that my area is mixed but doesn't seem to be getting markedly more deprived recently. No more so than everyone experiencing COL etc.

related more to your comments re the decline of shops etc. - was at Highcross Leicester a few weeks ago and was surprised by the % of boarded up shops - three in a row at one point. I don’t remember that being the case years ago.

What's wrong with Greggs??

I wouldn't disagree at all. I've certainly noticed an increase in eastern European men sitting about outdoors in certain parts of the city drinking.

TBH I wonder if we live in the same town.
It has a huge wealth disparity. One of the highest rates of children on FSM a few years ago, but also have lots of private schools.
The town is overrun with drug addicts and alcoholics, drinking, begging etc etc.
Can't go to a cash point without someone asking for money, all of the larger supermarkets have people outside, nice parks are overrun with the drinkers, day till night. The chemists in the area often have people outside asking if they can buy your meds. It is absolutely grim, but I think these are general problems now, discarded needles aren't irregular. Break ins, not irregular. Towns empty save for beggars.

How can it be outing when this thread isn't associated with any of your other posts on MN? How would any one be able to identify you if you named the town?

Why does OP need to name the town? It's pretty much MostTowns UK these days IME.

Not necessarily - plenty of towns on Dorset / Hampshire coast have river walks

I drove into my local town yesterday for the first time in over a year and I was shocked at the deterioration and the pissheads just drinking in the street.

Normally it looks lovely at this time of year as the trees are in full bloom etc. but it all looked shabby and awful.

Good point about pubs becoming more expensive.

I wonder if the rise of purchasing cheap booze from supermarkets (not to mention B&M's and Lidl) has contributed to outdoor drinking?

Perhaps they were moved on in the town centre and have spread across the borough?
I don't know the answers, only see the growth of the problem.

I imagine most come from troubled families and here we just are. I wonder if some of these places with become no go areas in the future. Can't see this particular town regenerating for some time.

We moved here due to my job, so it isn't a heartbreaking wrench for us to leave, but we are wary of how far and wide the problem is. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford to live wherever we choose, although I may have to switch career.

Definitely associate with the shops closing but that's partly because there's been a new shopping centre and many have relocated there.
Don't recognise the bit about drunk men passing out in parks.
There are a lot of teenage / young adult gangs riding around on bikes, motorbikes and e-scooters, damaging parks, riding them off road on footpaths and cycle paths and generally terrorising other path users. They do it because if they don't wear a helmet they know the police won't chase them so they get away it. I never used to use the cycle paths alone in the dark, now i don't use them in daylight.

Of course it’s not deliberate - that’s bullshit.

Yes there’s a decline for sure - but honestly - do you think the financial crash, misinformation over the benefits of Brexit, Covid shut down, Ukraine War, current trade wars and tariffs, rise in technology AI and loss of white collar jobs, war in MIddle East from Arab Spring, Libya, Syrian Civil war, Hamas terrorists and Netanyahu right wing ideology’ and the accumulation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands - have all been strategically masterminded to bring about the downfall of the U.K.???
This isn’t even counting Climate Change which will cause ever increasing mass migration.

It’s sad your town has changed. One thing you can do personally is campaign and push for changes locally, shop locally, support local business, push for zero tolerance on alcohol, campaign for areas where people can congregate or push for volunteer and clean up projects.

Don't recognise the bit about drunk men passing out in parks.

Seriously, until recently, it wasn't a common sight here!

Sounds grim, and towns getting like this tend to go into a downward spiral.
Causes? Lack of jobs, lack of purpose lead to lack of any drive. Feeling disinvested in society because of the above leads to lack of interest in the town or community. If they are single lack of ties to family may lead to hanging out with like minded people to find their tribe. Certainly cuts to police visible on the beat have not helped.
Is it everywhere? Not where I live, smaller town, Scotland. Haven’t seen it in bits of England we have visited but we haven’t been everywhere.
How to stop it? Million dollar question and it would take several million and a will from government that doesn’t exist. Meaningful jobs, plentiful housing, genuine interest in regeneration of areas beyond building expensive flats.
Is it more visible in the last two months or so because of warmer weather?

When I moved here in 2009 the town was considered quite 'posh' and probably most people would still associate it with that, but the vibe has definitely declined in the last few years. Not so much the people, but the centre looks very unloved. Lots of the shops have closed, paving is being replaced/filled in with tarmac, and it just doesn't look clean or well cared for. Meanwhile, the northern city where I grew up, long considered a bit grim, has had a real glow up. The council are investing heavily, the shops are all getting lovely smart signage and it always looks clean.

I know a few seaside towns with rivers. Don't rivers run down to the coast.

I think seaside towns with a river often end with mouth, like Dartmouth, coastal town where the river Dart meets the sea.

Totally irrelevant but I just wanted to check I wasn't imagining things.

OP it’s happening everywhere. I was recently visiting a very affluent, leafy, town. There was a large congregation of boozers gathered around a bench (yards from a Le Creuset showroom). One of the blokes sitting on the bench just started pissing. He didn’t stand up, he didn’t remove any clothes. He just sat there and pissed. His mates all cackled as the stream of piss trickled down the pavement.

I think Covid did normalise gathering to drink like this. Plus the closure of pubs, and the extortionate price of drinking in pubs. I don’t think drinking outdoors should be banned outright, but antisocial, drunken behaviour should be cracked down on.

I assumed she meant men from Lincolnshire 🤔

If they are single lack of ties to family may lead to hanging out with like minded people to find their tribe.

Likely this.
The oddest thing is how few women are out and about in recreational areas now. There are so many of them though, I have no idea how it grew so quickly.

We live on the outskirts in a lovely place, and it has crept into the parks and river ways close by.
I would very much not advise anyone to purchase a property in any of the good areas now, and would never have said this 6 years ago.

Many town centres are dying unfortunately due to the popularity of online shopping and out of town retail parks (sometimes with free parking). I think times have changed so much from when the town centre was a nice day out to go shopping on a Saturday!
I would think the majority of town centres now - not all - have empty shops (high rental rates, alternative shopping options [see online!] and the effect of Covid) and some of the problems you have mentioned OP, though not necessarily to that degree.

@bostongirl222 no- Mansfield - luckily didn’t go Reform but it would have done if the right wing wasn’t split and has Lee Anderson 2 miles up the road in Ashfield - it was always working class with a few quite posh ‘pockets’ but town centre was vibrant and not unattractive- it is now unrecognisable . Some things have actually improved- a few niceish restaurants on the edges, train service resumed, some quite nice new housing and a few retail parks - town centre truly awful- one previously vibrant and attractive street just off the town square used to be full of pubs, cafes, newsagents, banks, all totally boarded up -

sounds like you’re talking about basically street drinkers and people on the edges of society who generally come from a background of really serious trauma and being repeatedly seriously failed by society. I know that because I used to be a street drinker myself. austerity has stripped so many services back to the bones, there is increasing levels of desperation and poverty. How charming of you to only comment on this in terms of it making your town look like a shit hole.

I hate the response - oh you must be Reform or from the Daily Mail. Why cannot people calmly discuss what is happening in some towns in our country? Surely this blanket, oh it’s not happening or you must be a rascist etc to even think this way, will drive people into the arms of reform?

for what it is worth I don’t recognise this situation in my current town because it is affluent. But we lived for many years in a slowly ‘on the up’ part of east London and there were regular complaints about large groups of Eastern European men who were hanging about during the day in local parks, drinking and defecating in the park (including in the children’s hedge maze) or sitting outside cafes into the evening (no problem with that in general but some men harassed women walking past, it got to be such a problem that friends who lived on a road where the cafe was on the corner went the long way round to get home at night). Police got involved etc. So I have experienced some of these issues but always felt we couldn’t actually talk about them because of this fear of being dubbed a rascist. If we can’t talk how can we improve, and come up with solutions to help people?