To feel our quality of life in the UK gets lower every year?

[Playingvideogames]

Off the back of another thread where I mentioned my childhood homes being bought by my parents for under 300k in the late 90s/early 2000s, and are now all selling for 700k+.

I feel like our quality of life just dwindles every year. Everything becomes more expensive. Housing is low quality, small and extortionate. The weather is awful 70% of the time. Everything feels so overcrowded with fewer green spaces and natural beauty as more housing estates go up. The roads are awful, choked with traffic and potholed. Constant roadworks here yet nothing ever seems to get solved. Customer service is a bit rubbish, nothing really works as intended. More and more rules about what you can and can’t do. People just seem stifled and stressed.

I’m sure people will rush along to say how wonderful the NHS is and similar, but I sometimes feel really envious of people living in places where (although not perfect) they have something reliable to enjoy - great weather, a nice big house, just more space and less overcrowding.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable but I wonder if you do!

Possibly Spain. Better weather, lower population density, more affordable. Yes I’m sure you’ll be along with the top 5 worst things about Spain, and I know it has its issues (parent lives there), but that’s the joy of debate I suppose

Interesting that 80% of voters agree with me yet the comments are outraged and suggest I’m a borderline traitor for thinking the UK is anything less than the best country in the world!

Or we can just stop wildly high immigration and let the population rebalance as people have less children, no habitat destruction required?

I am too. How it should be a pleasure and privilege to work for 50 years to support ‘the vulnerable’ who can also be very vociferous and quite guilt tripping. I’m all for a good safety net, but the UK is ridiculous.

This is the same in our town which was a very rural community. The population has gone from 50-100k in 20 years: much of it immigration from abroad. Looking at maps of the town is so odd now - it's twice the size and vast amounts of green land have been built on with high-rise flats (which didn't exist here 20 years ago).

We are currently campaigning for the remaining green 'wedge' in the area to be preserved - but it's earmarked for housing.

My whole life is here - where the fuck would I move to?!

It is getting worse and will continue to do so. Brexit hasn't helped but the main problem is that there are too many billionaires taking too much from the many. This will continue to happen until we start taxing them. If Reform get in, things will only get worse. "Man of the People" Farage loves nothing more than cosying up to the billionaires and shoving his nose up their arses.

Do you really want to get rid of it? I hope we don’t. We are crowded already. England is comparably so when not taking the less populated stats into account.

The demand for more feels like it’s not going to be met.

I mean to extrapolate that, the entire world should be entitled to live in the UK, and nobody should be able to complain, because we also live here. But that’s absurd isn’t it?

They’ll just keep raising the retirement age, taxing more and being more financially punitive toward middle earners. ‘Twas ever thus

But presumably alongside your future pension that tax paid for your medical care, your education, your children’s education, etc?

Ok @Playingvideogames I will be honest - have lived a few years ago ( within the last 7) in Copenhagen and also Netherlands as well as UK ( am British) - I think the quality of life is better in Copenhagen and very nice small city just outside Amsterdam . It’s cleaner, roads were better, public transport good, mix of shops way better than most UK places ( although in all fairness I live in Bath so it’s decent here too) easy access in both to beaches, forests, other lovely places to visit and a great airport - despite what others may say it actually rained less and winters were colder and dull but to me less rainy. There was far less public displays of yelling at each other in public, throwing litter down and general piss poor public behaviour. In Amsterdam area it’s also incredibly easy to go to other places for cheap weekends and in fact easier , quicker and cheaper to nip to say Manchester or wherever than it is nipping there from London

it wouldn’t however be for everyone and ‘quality of life is a really subjective thing ‘ - I got used to cooking more- no M&S or Waitrose ready meals, a lot of the areas are quite urban, so you may have quite a nice home but there aren’t many detached houses until you get quite a bit ‘out’ - and your lovely house may well have a large high rises behind you - it’s flat, so if you want hills you go away somewhere like Germany or Austria or France. It’s not a country pub type culture, it’s nice wine bars, furry rugs, sitting on terraces in all weathers etc . And neither are cheap - Netherlands around same as UK for most things ( rating and drinking out I think a bit cheaper ) housing in the ranstad area extortionate - all around London money or just under. Copenhagen housing is less but still southern England money, utilities less, everything else more.
However in both country’s childcare reasonable- very reasonable , no council tax - general taxation higher than UK

i do think the idea that quality of life can’t be better somewhere else is wrong, it can, but it’s a really individual thing - if someone lives in a cheap area midlands or north in a nice house with an ok job and masses of friends and relatives they get on with and good scenery on doorstep ,I’m not sure they would think the quality of life was better elsewhere - some people honestly don’t get agitated by weather or potholes or lots of barbers/nail bars etc - personally I find most of the UK blooming depressing and has been for 10 years.

Spain has also gotten more expensive in the last 5Y but with three big caveats that give Spain the edge.

1. Their energy costs are much lower vs UK (a consequence of serious investment into their infrastructure going back 20Y)
2. Their transport system (trains) is now far superior to the UKs (again due to serious investment going back 20Y)
3. Their public healthcare system is better vs NHS (they use a public-private model like most European countries)

London still edges out Madrid in terms of career opportunities, but the quality of life is definitely tilted in Madrid's favour now.

Is that the best you’ve got?? Criticising my spelling??
Pathetic.
My mother has always despaired over my spelling as I’m a voracious reader -just one of those things I suppose.
However, last night I couldn’t really see what I was typing because of the tears.
I sometimes get flashbacks you see when I write about certain things.
Did it make you feel superior to point out my spelling mistakes?
Is that what you need to do to feel good about yourself??

Fair questions. Why have a go at spelling.

No, I don't feel my quality of life has got worse or is decreasing every year. I can only speak for myself though.

I'm happy with my house and where I live. There are lots of places to walk without having to drive, woods etc and I can see the hills far away, flocks or ducks and geese, I get birds, bats, foxes, badgers and many other species in my garden. Nature really is beautiful.

Some inner city and industrial areas have been regenerated and new homes built, a vast improvement on what was there before.

If I do an E consult for the GP surgery, within a day or two they respond and we're seen or given advice/new prescription etc. Very good service and all free, unless you pay for prescriptions (I do).

I don't mind the weather, we don't have extremes which I'm very thankful for. Oh we did have one day in January where there was a yellow warning for ice, but it wasn't bad at all.

Places can be busy at weekends, can't admit I always like that so I sometimes go earlier or later than most others, when it's less busy.

Most roads are okay, I've visited some countries with really unsafe and hair raising driving.

I now live in a country most people in the UK would love to move to. Yes wages are higher but the cost of everything is higher. Food is soooooooo expensive. Cleaners charge upwards of £30 a hr, electricians/plumbers etc at least £100.
Despite Australia being painted as the land of sunshine & pots of gold it’s not. Sydney actually gets more rainfall than London. Over the past few months we’ve had bushfires, floods, cyclones, multiple people being attacked by sharks. When it’s hot you can’t actually go outside, it’s too hot!
I need to see a Dr to ask for a referral to a physio. I don’t have private insurance (which costs about £300 a month for a family) so to go the Dr it costs me £40 out of pocket after the government rebate, all for a 3minute conversation. Then the actually physio is going to be about £90-120 a visit. Oh an if I need to call an ambulance for my sick child it will set me back £300!!!!!

Nowhere is perfect.

we do need a bit more reality with the care for older people. Quality of life is not always considered when treating elderly people with significant health issues. What is the benefit to anyone in keeping a 90 year old lady alive with regular treatments and antibiotics, she has Alzheimer’s, no ability to walk, feed herself or engage with those around her, at a cost of over £100,000 a year. It’s very sad but we need to face up to our own mortality, so many people want to keep their parents alive for as long as possible, despite their circumstances.

Agreed.

Its become a serious economic problem as the population gets older and resources get diverted towards that type of spending vs productive investment.

Yes, I am fascinated with Australia & can definitely see why people move there. But it's naive to paint the sunshine as necessarily meaning that Oz has better weather than England.

Lovely post

We need to do what Netherlands have done & stop overseas people buying second homes here. Second homes should maybe be banned altogether.

Spain is pretty positive imo. The main issue for me would be the heat but this of course varies based on area

Which island? I get if prefer not to say..

The idea of “work hard because it will pay off” is a massive con, though. All functioning adults know that’s simply not true. It might pay off but often it doesn’t, certainly not under capitalism.

I was with you until you started going on about housing. Where are people supposed to live? Submarines?

I would concede urban planning here in bad, but not down to housing estates. None of it would be an issue if people were willing to build up instead of rows and rows of small, depressing houses. Many other countries rely mostly in apartments and have bigger living areas.