Old haunts

[victor]

We went to Yeovil to see two of her sisters we had not seen since covid.
Could not believe what SSDC are having done to the town.the lower half of the main St.looks like a disaster zone,building a stepped viewing area with a fountain,eventually!
Also went to Gillingham to place flowers on their Mum's grave,the Cemetery is a disgrace, headstones fallen ,grass uncut,no watering cans ( broken or stolen presumably).
Then went for a stroll around the town,well again the lower end of the town had shops boarded up,dirty .
The top of the town was slightly better only a couple of shops boarded up.
We actually moved away in 1974 after growing up and getting married there.
Think the Councils in both towns need to rethink what is really needed by the population.

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[TheOstrich]

There has been some comment on the local Gillingham FB page about the upkeep of the New Cemetery recently, Vic, and I understood the local Council had got to grips with it ...... maybe not, then.
You could have popped in for a cuppa, I live only a short walk away from there.
As you probably know, most of the town centre in Gillingham is owned by two institutional landlords, the Hopkins (Wincanton concrete) and the Tizzards (of horse-racing fame).
It seems they have no real interest in the town, unlike the chap who owns The Newt in Somerset, who has put a lot of money into beautifying nearby Castle Cary, apparently.
There is no incentive for independent traders to come to Gillingham High Street as the supermarkets - Lidl, Asda, Iceland, Waitrose - dominate everything.
The lower end by the Town Meadow - well, those two derelict shops have been like that since we moved here in 2016. I suspect the risk of flooding from Shreen Water detracts somewhat.
Even the charity shops are closing, the Shetland & Donkey Home packed up earlier this month.

A few months ago, I was stopped in the council car-park by a family of Chinese tourists (yes, honestly!) who wanted to know where the Town Centre was. I directed them to Shaftesbury ....

I haven't been in Yeovil Town Centre since we moved back down here. It was grotty when we moved away in 2000, and I gather it hasn't improved. The Quedam Centre was a hulk back then and I doubt much has changed.
Did their escalators ever work?
Yeovil doesn't have a good reputation for drugs and crime these days, I'm afraid.

Such is life....

But if you think all that's bad, well, having spent the first 16 years of this century living in Sutton Coldfield, boy were we glad to get out of there. I found Birmingham City Centre after 6:00 in the evening full of crazies you certainly did not want to make eye contact with, let alone engage, especially around the Weatherspoons where the Sutton buses went from. I would never go back there to live, despite the "amenities" of city living.

[cruiser2]

In Wigan, the original market hall built in the late 19th century was lnocked down and a new one, including a Morrisons supermarket
was opened in 988.

Most of the stall are now empty, and the supermarket has closed and been demolished. So now there is just a large level area.
The plans show there is going to be a hotel, apartments, a bowling alley and a darts hall. This i the center of town.

No mention of a car park. But there is an area already constructed. It is to be used for outdoor events. One side is along side a main
road used by buses. I can see trouble when they start holding events on it.

But then we have a Labour council and it will never change.

[cromwell]

Sometimes going back can be very bittersweet.
I think lots of towns in the UK have gone downhill in the last forty or fifty years; they certainly have around here.

[Workingman]

Former towns that were once places in their own right but have been consumed by the cities / conurbations don't seem to have done too bad, at least round here - Leeds, Bradford Wakefield city region. They have their old Town Streets and very often a supermarket or two and, of course, transport links to the city.

It's the ones just that bit further out that have suffered - Dewsbury, Normanton, Garforth, Castleford, etc. They cannot compete with the selection of goods and prices in the city regions and little transport goes to them. They really are just for the basics.

[Kaz]

Sometimes going back can be very bittersweet.
I think lots of towns in the UK have gone downhill in the last forty or fifty years; they certainly have around here.

This.

[JoM]

Sometimes going back can be very bittersweet.
I think lots of towns in the UK have gone downhill in the last forty or fifty years; they certainly have around here.

This.

Yes, here too.
I walked into Cannock this morning, there’s hardly anything worth visiting the town for now and everywhere looks awful. There’s an eyesore of a multistorey car park which has been closed for years due to the structure being dangerous, it’s apparently going to be demolished soon and a lot of money has been earmarked for redeveloping the site and the town centre into a more attractive place to visit. Someone’s got their work cut out

I had a nice nostalgic walk the other morning, around the estate where a lot of my family lived. My Nan, an aunty, an uncle and a cousin all had houses there and we’d just run from house to house (didn’t have to run far from my Nan’s house to my uncle’s though, they were next door to each other). It really brought back some lovely memories though.

[Kaz]

The city centre here is poor. They replaced King's Square with a horrid concreted plaza thing that apparently cost millions, the huge Debenhams that faced into it is supposedly being turned into classrooms for Gloucester Uni but it's taking forever.

There's also a new building called The Forum, which is apparently going to be work and leisure space, but it's taking forever, is a horrible dark red colour, and is five storeys high - which doesn't sound much, but apart from the Cathedral there's almost nothing else more than two storeys high, so it really looms

Lots of empty units and homeless people, and other socially challenged types about too - it's rare that I walk through without something or other kicking off

Luckily we have a nice M&S, which is an oasis in the chaos, and the Docks and Quays area a short walk away.

When I go back to Staines, where I come from, it looks prosperous enough, but then they gave it the Staines- Upon-Thames "glow up" and it's full of London commuters etc....