Area gone to shit, feel forced to move 😪

[Runouttatown]

I've lived in the same London suburb all my life. Until just a few short years ago it was a very nice area, and we thought we'd likely stay for ever, perhaps downsizing when the DC left home. We've spent a lot of time and money improving and extending our home over the years and it's perfect for us, just the way we want it, so would not wish to leave it for a few years yet.

However, the area has been going downhill at an alarming rate over the last 3 or 4 years to the point that we find we now absolutely hate it and want to get out - overcrowded, horrendous traffic, driving & road rage, unpleasant, rude people, lots of crime and antisocial behaviour. HMOs springing up all over, including one at the end of the street, most of which contain single, foreign men, not families. We're overrun with food delivery bike riders (many of whom live in the HMOS) who congregate in the high street, leering at women & young girls and spit disgusting red tobacco on the pavement. The area looks increasingly run down, fly tipping and a general lack of care. It has long been fairly multi cultural (no problem with that at all) but we're now finding that as white british people we are fast becoming a minority, and frequently encounter people who cannot speak any English. I'm sure some will accuse me of being racist but I absolutely am not, I'm just sad at what has happened to our once lovely area and, no, I'm not blaming immigration for all of it, although it's clearly a factor.

I know many areas are the same but there are plenty that are not - I only have to compare our Community Facebook page which is full of posts complaining of the above issues to that of the area we're thinking of going to which is completely different.

We've accepted we now need to move several years before we are ready but I feel so sad and angry about it. Several friends have already moved and others are considering it for the same reasons. The DC are happy for us to move as they hate it too - one at uni, the other working & considering buying their own place, not round here!

Not only was the poster not communicating in good faith, she was unnecessarily snarky and disrespectful and made it personal.

Yep. There are certain posters who love to decry ' sea lioning!' ( admittedly, I had to look this up), but are the ones most likely to indulge in it themselves... Probably why they're the only ones to understand the meaning, the rational amongst us would have no need to know such a phrase.

Answering my own question as @TheCriticalThinker didn't want to. Which is that most of those 11 million people are not claiming benefits.

"Data showing the immigration status of those claiming universal credit (UC) - a benefit designed to help both employed and unemployed people with living costs - has been published for the first time.

In June, nearly eight million people received universal credit, 83.6% of whom were British and Irish nationals.

More than a million claimants were born overseas, including around 700,000 EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit and have the right to live and work in the UK.

Around 1.5% of claimants were refugees and 0.7% had arrived in the UK via safe routes such as those for Ukrainians and Afghans.

More than 75,000 claimants who are in the UK temporarily and would typically not be able to receive benefits are also claiming UC.

The Department for Work and Pensions has said most foreign nationals can claim only after five years residency, but there are exceptions such as for victims of modern slavery.

The government produced figures, external going back to April 2022. In that time, the proportion of claimants who were born overseas has remained broadly level at between 15% and 17%.

During the same period, the total number of people on UC rose from 5.5m to 7.9m.

According to the most recent figures for May 2025, around half of EU citizens claiming UC are in employment, compared to a fifth of refugees.

The figures were published, external following pressure from some Conservatives and the independent MP Rupert Lowe.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the prime minister wanted to see the number of unemployed foreign nationals claiming benefits to go down and insisted the government was "toughening up the system" by doubling the time a migrant has to wait before qualifying for permanent - or settled - status in the UK.

They added that people in the UK illegally are not allowed to access UC"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx5pw8pwg5o

You demanded evidence for a claim that was never made. The PP we were spending tens of billions on migrants and showed you the benefits bill, add that to asylum costs and public services and you have your tens of billions. PP did not say that most or all immigrants were on benefits, you put those words in her mouth and demanded that she prove it.

Your own paste says it clearly: More than a million claimants were born overseas.

That's not sustainable. The welfare state was never set up so that more than one million people could be funded to live in the UK on benefits

Do you ever go litter picking?

This is very misleading. Yes London has always had transient/immigrant communities. But it certainly hasn’t always ‘been made up’ of them. Until the last few decades London was overwhelmingly British and there are such a thing as native Londoners. If you’re an old person who was born in London, your town has utterly changed in character in an unprecedented way. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem, but it’s pretty undemocratic since people have been consistently voting for parties that say they will reduce immigration and then don’t.

In the 1960s census, London was 98% white British.

In the 2020s census, London was 37% white British.

I asked AI how that ranks in terms of major cultural shifts and it said no other major city in history has come anywhere close to such a massive change so quickly. Only small cities like Detroit, which saw an even bigger shift over 70 years have seen anything like this, and it both led to and was the result of major economic decline

Parts of London are worse than the old USA ghettos and worse the areas cannot cope with the incumbents so they are relocated to distant towns and villages..

These places were nice but have been decimated and have also become ghettos.

Sea- lioning, lol. That's pretty funny of a term for this. Apt description though. I didn't use to call this sort of stuff out but it just irritated me seeing a woman putting another down like that, especially over politics.

O:
(That's my idea of a shock face, btw)

Accept it, it’s part of life, and move.

That’s literally what her post said she’s going to do.

Now you see it, you can't unsee it. There's one particular poster who constantly accuses others of doing it, whilst demanding ' evidence now!' And disputing any source If it didn't fit her argument. Used to always wind me up, but now just makes me sigh at how juvenile they are. Absolutely agree with calling out downright unpleasant, goading behaviour though, the more we sit back and let it happen, the more unpleasant they'll continue to be. So good on ya!

Move then. 👋

As usual, there's a small minority of posters saying

1. move

and 2) some parts of Britain have become nicer

I absolutely agree that areas go up and down. Lots of changes over time.

I'd be really interested to hear of some of these places that have got nicer

A lot of these problems seem to be universal. I don't claim to be everywhere all at once! But if I go back certainly the last seven or eight years, there seems to be a decline in many places, or at least a lot of of the places I've had to visit for work

i'd be genuinely interested to hear where has improved because my feeling is there are big problems across the country... and telling people to move isn't really very effective

Because where do they go?

I moved from a problematic outer London suburb to Essex. It was lovely when I moved in. That was nearly 3 years ago. Now I can feel a turning. I hope it's not a turning but having watched my London suburb go this way, I feel like there are signs.

An awful lot of it is going to depend how the properties up for sale go and I suppose that will depend a lot on the council.

A few too many like that on this thread!

I have to agree that the London I was born into nearly 78 years ago has in the main changed in all recognition. Nevertheless there are still pockets where there is a community feel no matter where people were born. It's extremely rare for me to meet born and bred Londoners.

Couldn't agree more. Used to live in Hackney in the 90s. I still can't get over seeing tapas bars where the local twockers used to set fire to cars.

I love it when Brits who use the gig economy, who are the main beneficiaries of the gig economy, complain about the people who work in the gig economy (and esp about HMOs - how dare the underclass want a cheap place to live w proper roof when they should be satisfied with a tent).

I think you will find there has been an exodus away from deliveroo, uber and nail bars.

Interesting...

But it is a problem for those elderly natives, this was their home. It no longer is. The people who have moved in have come from another place that is their home. Now, I'm not saying we need stagnating populations and there shouldn't be movement, of course there should. People can move and call other places home. But these people need to integrate and align themselves to the new place they settle in. And this should also be done with the consent of the people who were there first. I don't think these people get a fair hearing in these discussions.

Has there? If that is correct then it's really good news.

I've never used them. I know people are free to do what they want, but in my neck of the woods I get (secretly) annoyed that people are using them. We managed to stay free of them for a really long time. It's as if people don't realise how much that contributed to it staying a nice area.

interestingly, one couple moved to my area from East London and moved back within a year. They hate it here. The fact that they aren't several cuisines are represented in the High Street seems to really bother them.

oh, and the fact that you might have to give your taxi company half an hour notice for a job. They didn't like that.

Oh I think there were plenty of antisocial problems associated with poverty in London in the 1920s!
(And the 1820s)
(And the 1720s).

The tone of people complaining about the great unwashed has remained remarkably similar throughout, although different groups have been blamed at different times.

I've never used any