London and surrounding area has become so unkempt

[GrubbyTowns]

Rubbish strewn everywhere. All the verges full of cans, takeout detritus.
London and the southeast generally just seems so unkempt to where it was a few years ago even.
Just came back from a trip to Liverpool and the contrast was incredible. A busy city but so clean!
Why is this?

In all honesty it’s likely mostly that councils can’t keep up with the cost of social care and other areas like waste management, verges, bins etc are cut. We have an ageing population, a huge amount of illness, mental health issues and people with multiple chronic conditions (a huge % of the over 50s) and a generally unhealthy population relying on taxes to pay for their various care needs while wages have stagnated, industry fucked off and prosperity faded.

We are a nation in financial decline and therefore social decline.

Well enjoy being miserable. I’ll continue to plug the gaps where you seem to have let rage take your place. I’ll continue to volunteer at the food banks, litter pick, eat meals with those with dementia, grow food and bake for friends and neighbours.

Community is built through giving and open arms not through anger at people being born elsewhere or noting that pillaging other nations wasn’t a great thing to do. Nobody else is going to make your world better for you.

Race is the left weapon of choice. Make sure you get candidates in key positions that are beyond criticism due to their religion or colour.

This needs to be pinned to the top of AIBU, it’s the answer to many threads!

Nobody else is going to make your world better for you.

But people seem determined to make it worse for no good reason.

Yes.

The councils might not have the funds to keep clean, but why are people behaving like savages?

My local park has, or had, rather some lovely flowers, all maintained by volunteers.

Why did some visitors this weekend let their children pick and trample the flowers and why did they not pick up
after themselves?

This is so true. In our village I have never seen a council cleaner, a traffic warden, a policeman, council gardener etc (which would see all the time when lived in London). So we have a choice to moan or sort it out ourselves. Most chose the later option, which makes it a lovely place to live as people care and have pride in looking after their surroundings and also each other. Children are regularly seen out litter picking, doing toy or bake sales for the village food bank, the elderly day care centre, the local animal rescue etc, so the ethos is clearly permeating through all generations which is great to see. Vs many of the families I work with in London who seem disconnected and often passive, expecting to receive rather than engage. Commuinity is so important and it's a shame that not everyone has access to it.

Yes I take your point. The councils certainly have gone downhill in terms of rubbish collection and maintenance of public areas, verges etc. We are certainly overpopulated in this corner of the UK and the population is living too long, in declining health.

What I can’t comprehend is why people willingly make it worse, through littering, dog muck, fly tipping, graffiti etc. It’s not even just public areas, the amount of gardens that seem to be general dumping grounds. I grew up in poverty, in an overcrowded council house but every house had a well kept garden front and back, full of flowers. It was a matter of pride.

Clean? Last time
i I was out in the north joking people chucked their litter out their windows for someone else to clean up. People are filthy and terribly behaved wherever without turning this into a regional thing.

Not trying to turn into a regional thing. Manchester was pretty filthy too when I visited. Was just struck by Liverpool being such a contrast as I’ve become so used to rubbish, decay and general grubbiness. It was like going back 40 years, lovely.

Liverpool and surrounding areas certainly had a massive increase in littering under the Tories, I remember really noticing it after going to France on holiday and the contrast when we came home and really noticed the litter on the roads and beaches. However, I've not noticed it to be a problem recently so I suppose it has improved under Labour, hopefully London will follow suit.

LOL

I’ve recently visited central London and I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised with how clean it was. The air has also improved and the streets were much calmer and quieter with less traffic, quiet electric buses and taxis, lots of cyclists. Elizabeth line was clean and efficient too. I thought the city has changed for the better.

There is some positive change coming from late 2027 with the plastic bottles and cans recycling scheme being rolled out. People will be encouraged to return bottles and cans to get back £ deposit. It has proven successful in other countries reducing litter significantly.

There are other practical things people can do to make things better, including volunteer litter picking, reporting litter to your local council (repeatedly if needed- they have to act), speaking to family members, kids, husbands (!) about the importance of bringing your litter home and not throwing things out of car windows.

my husband and I walk our village every week a day after the recycling trucks have been and pick up any trash that has fallen off the trucks and do a general litter pick. We could complain about it waiting for someone else to act, or we can do something about it ourselves.
Our neighbours regularly tidy up overgrown paths, remove weeds etc, we all take pride in where we live.

Another disingenuous post!

You implied (but stopped short of actually saying..) that a criticism of the state of London's streets was a criticism of the London mayor, as well as an endorsement of Reform and its policies. I think that's insulting to pps where there is no evidence that they are suggesting that.

If you're going to make such a stretchy allegation, at least have the courage to come out and admit it!

I think there are many reasons for general messiness. One is the proliferation of fast food outlets. My little commuter town has just had a MacDonalds foisted on us (high streets are in trouble and beggars can't be choosers). There was an almighty fuss because residents feared litter problems and the council have promised to monitor this. It's too early to say whether they will keep that promise!

Also - a lack of personal responsibility. What belongs to everyone (public spaces) belongs to no-one, does it? And also - the 'broken window syndrome', where people see mess and squalor and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

I used to work in a school (state comp) where they employed 2, yes 2, whole people to pick up the kids' litter all day. The school had been expanded massively on a small site (idiotic) and most of the students and staff were forced to eat out of cardboard boxes in the grounds. There were ample bins but when I reminded a boy to put his rubbish in a bin one day, he responded 'But it's her job to pick up rubbish' (pointing at the lady with the litter-picker). I put him right, but I was struck by this attitude.

If the school had spent the same money on a gardener to beautify the grounds I think that would have been more effective in getting kids to keep the place tidy, rather than subliminally teaching them that picking up litter wasn't their job.

@ButterYellowHair I agree with your post - the two things that are in my opinion contributing to so many issues are housing costs ( particularly in the southern half of UK and more in demand areas in midlands and north) and that’s both private rented and mortgaged- and social care needs which was turned over to council responsibility - I think it’s why we have to develop either a lot more social housing in areas where it’s needed if all sizes and styles and bring down the reliance on private rentals-and not just social housing for those with kids and low income - it needs to be a choice - my son on £38k in London would certainly kill for a nice new social housing 1 bedder and would be happy to pay £1000 a month etc- and actually be able to save a bit -and I think we need to be bringing in an insurance scheme ref social care that you start to pay into at40 -maybe 2% on earnings but limits what the care provider can take to say £80k -after this insurance kicks in -be that care homes or care visits home. Councils can then get back to spending in community not having to allocate vast amounts for social care with costs outside their control. And if people say the housing thing can’t be done- it can- with a will, it was certainly the case when we lived in Copenhagen - lots if26 year olds had nice modern 1 and sometimes2 bed social housing - we gave here instead fully brought in a lot of shared ownership , the problem is that whilst this can work well if a couple, it often can’t work financially if in your own and in a slightly more expensive area or in case of London a lot more expensive- and yet this is where demand is and more jobs to make it possible

I think we have to start backing independent British businesses properly again. Pride in Britain and all we have to offer, can bring these streets back to life.