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.

Go to Chester - horrible feel in the streets sometimes. It's always had a rough edge under the facade but it 100 times worse now. There are people there (the usual crowd I'm afraid - druggies, drinkers etc) that would steal the steam of your piss.

I would say the issue is successive useless governments and unqualified, even more useless politicians. Politicians who have in the past directed money away to their friends in big business…and a government now who is directing the money away to their friends in the business of net zero, war and rentals for new arrivals.

It’s very sad, the country is looking pretty unrecognisable, people are getting poorer (whilst being told we’ve got more money in our pockets) and many many people are giving up. They’ve lost hope. They just want to escape from their shitty lives, so unsurprising turn to drugs and alcohol. No point trying to be all subtle about it. And white working class boys…as a teacher you’ll probably know that they are the worst performing group at the moment, so what do people think will happen in their future?

Now as for Reform, they are doing well because they are not the Tories and they are not Labour, and people don’t trust either of those parties anymore. So whether they can make a difference or not is irrelevant. We already know Labour and the Conservatives won’t, that’s pretty much proven.

I think this deterioration of the country is set to continue sadly.

Sounds like Gravesend, except that’s always been a shite hole

The Council I work for have said they are aware that towns in the borough have deteriorated due to council funding pressures meaning they are not keeping up with keeping areas clean or tidy or community safety initiatives etc. So that is likely part of it. General deterioration due to lack of council funding.

It pisses me off. Central government suppress council funding as an easy win as residents blame councils, not central government for deterioration in services.

Op here In Scotland we have minimum pricing on our alcohol and yet still we have the same issues as you describe here. It's pretty dire across the whole of the UK.
Depressing eh

@RedhairDL Labour did make a difference under Blair and Brown to everyone's living standards. Labour under Starmer will do the same. Meanwhile in Reform led councils action is happening but probably not the sort of action Reform want.

www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/union-membership-increases-in-reformled-councils-b1231910.html

@FroggletTowers Any indication this coincides with county lines reaching the area? Was really shocked to see what was going on in some of the areas I knew that had a rough past (port towns) but had been going in a good direction until county lines hit.

Where i live, they're what I call the Brexit/Reform lot. Mostly white, often overweight, either just 'hanging around' with their partners in the town centre or being rude to staff and customers in shops, vaping, etc, don't seem to be doing anything...

...yet, all the while complaining about the hard-working foreigners doing the jobs they can't be bothered to do. They're Farage's scumbags. And the sad thing is, is that it's guaranteed that he'll sh*t on them from a height if they give him power.

Where I live, Dudley, the council do put money in from time to time.

They planted a load of trees in the local park a few weeks ago. Within 24 hours, the local dickhead had snapped all the saplings in two. When the council put bins in the park, they are set fire to.

@PandoraSocks etc is anyone that the council is paid to look after. It is a different story in Lincolnshire which is only 10 miles away from Peterborough. I know the ex mayor, believe me, it's all about the money the council can take short term. They don't even think about long term implications.

Re Reform, I don't think they can run the country hence the reason I didn't vote in the last election. But people read the headlines and get drawn in. I looked at their agenda before the election and decided there simply wasn't enough info. I don't know what their actual plan is.

The underclass of society - drug addicts alcoholics, feckless with low intelligence have their lifestyle and wants facilitated by society / councils and NOT helped and stamped out.

Sadly, they go on to procreate with people in a similar situation and this perpetuates the cycle as it multiplies out of control.

Has anyone else any idea why something like this would become worse since the pandemic?

I don't mean the cost of living as such, or addiction issues, but more the groups of men hanging about?

I have definitely seen it to a lesser extent in other areas when visiting.

We were in Keswick a few months ago and saw groups of younger men drinking in the street - and although not remotely comparable to our town - we had never really noticed that when visiting in previous years.

Amazon took over a customer need; before Amazon there were local shops...they were undercut by Amazon and driven out of business. Easy to undercut if you treat your staff badly.

I’m afraid I disagree.
Labour will have no choice but to raise taxes on working people. They already have in a roundabout way. So people will have even less money and feel even more resentful, seeing it given away in subsidies to what’s his face who builds windmill farms or what ever.

It sounds a lot like my town......I think a lot of it is a direct result of cuts to MH services and drug and alcohol services being so hard to get tbh.

We also have the large groups of Eastern European men drinking and being general twats.

Alongside that our local council decided it would be a good idea to place hundreds of predominantly male asylum seekers in our already deprived town. They have little to do so they spend the day sat in the town centre using the free WiFi, occasionally one will be arrested for harassing women (( there have been a number of sexual assaults, lots of incidents of theft and constant fights breaking out )) some of them are clearly mentally unwell yet are just left to their own devices. They're bored and restless which never ends well. I actually sympathise with the decent ones, but there's no doubt that the handling of this situation has had a negative impact on where I live.

It no longer feels safe here. And this isn't because of asylum seekers or migrants. It's because people are being accepted in without proper consideration then left to rot........and I can't help but notice that the naice town a few miles up the road has had refugees placed with them.......only they only have Ukrainian families placed there......can't be having a load of blokes pissing on the cobblestones can we. 😶

😂How on earth is OP to blame? That's really funny.

I don't have the impression that ANY political party cares about this problem.
Not one single hoot.

There are plenty of places in Sussex that are still perfectly pleasant and don't have the sort of problems mentioned here, as long as you avoid the bigger seaside towns where homelessness is more of a problem.

Many of them are commutable to London, too.

Absolutely not my experience where I live, no. Can you plan to move? It does sound grim.

Yes, I recognise this. We live in an expensive village which is lovely but all the surrounding villages and towns have the issues you describe. One has an openly functioning brothel, anti social behaviour everywhere, I absolutely wouldn’t visit any of them at night.
I went to one particular town at 2pm on a Tuesday and the amount of people who were clearly inebriated/on drugs was alarming.

They don’t. They’re too busy working for their paid for suits, and spending billions telling us what we can’t do, whilst jumping on private flights and jetting off to fancy conferences.

Might as well give a new party a go.

I do voluntary litter picking. Street drinking has caused a huge spike in litter over the last few years, probably because the pub is so expensive. Our front bush is used as a vodka bottle bin almost nightly. I’m almost considering leaving a note as it’s likely the same person as it’s the same brand every time.

I visit the lakes a lot and it's been popular for hen and stag parties for years.......it's always been a bit of a posh booze crawl.

And don't even get me started on Bowness. Even Grasmere doesn't escape. It's ridiculous.

Surely that depends on what the new party is offering? New doesn’t mean better.

Nothing like this in our town. There have always been a few street drinkers but they generally keep themselves to themselves