Middlesbrough centre experience.

[Nero]

You were unlucky,time and place.Happens in any town centre. Middlesbrough is no different to any other place

Definitely. I was in East Sussex two weeks ago. We stayed in Hastings but went and and about all over. In Hastings though there was a clear problem with lots of people addicted to drink and drugs. One day I was stood with my son outside a shop (waiting for the Missus and daughter) and there was a bunch of people drinking cider from cans at 10am. I noticed the same type of stuff in Brighton as well.

 

[Norman_Conquest]

Tell me ONE place that hasn't got similar problems to what the OP described.

Down here in W/S Yorks it's the same. Ponte, Donny, Wakefield, Leeds etc it's the same

As I said above, it is a worldwide issue.

 

[Mwelolo]

TBF Bell and Blair did a big fat zero for us as well.
Perpetuated by Tory greed and now a Mayor adept at headlines grabbing the halfwit fence sitters attention.... it doesn't bode well.

The town centre is an absolute schit hole which has been getting worse for years.

I used to really enjoy going there as a young person.

I think the hue of the government has very little to do with it.

People do have choices , drug addiction is only one part of the problem.

Yes, other run down northern towns may be as bad in some respects but I don’t come from or live near those areas so I am not nearly as bothered by them.

 

[Cuthbert]

IMO I think Middlesbrough has always had a more aggressive edge than many towns around the country. Of course booze and drugs are a problem in most big towns around the country. However, the numbers doing it, and levels of aggression vary.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

No time for the woman but don’t blame any politician for personal responsibility, What I’ve learned over the years is the world owes no one a living, We should take care of the vulnerable, the sick and the elderly, the rest of us take our chances. Manners cost nothing.

You haven't learned much. You can't just parcel off 'earning a living' without considering the effects of multi generational poverty has on the individual and society as a whole. We came out of the 50s and 60s as a confident people looking at the progress being made. We're now a fractured society.

Manners are a two way relationship, part of respect. If you make a political decision not to respect, which we did, you'll breed a lack of respect in society, which we have.

 

[zzzzz]

IMO I think Middlesbrough has always had a more aggressive edge than many towns around the country. Of course booze and drugs are a problem in most big towns around the country. However, the numbers doing it, and levels of aggression vary.

And are reflected directly by poverty. Bring one of the most deprived and badly supported areas in the Country perpetuates generations of despair.

 

[Wiseman_Vaughn]

And are reflected directly by poverty. Bring one of the most deprived and badly supported areas in the Country perpetuates generations of despair.

But it's not just Middlesbrough/Teesside - It's everywhere. I don't think that anti social behaviour can be explained by lack of investment or jobs. There is more to it than that

 

[Nero]

But it's not just Middlesbrough/Teesside - It's everywhere. I don't think that anti social behaviour can be explained by lack of investment or jobs. There is more to it than that

There certainly is. The people described are living on the edges of normal society. They live day to day and in a constant muddled state due to drink or drugs, or both. It's about addiction, poverty, lack of opportunities, family history, lack of support and education, lack of resources for Local Authorities to engage as they probably would like too.

 

[DanBoro4499]

I went there before the Blackburn game a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in about 2 year.

Absolutely rancid.

I hate the new road changes at tees park but i'd go there over town anyday.

 

[Omega]

Vote Tory
Get the country you deserve

You could say vote labour council get the town you deserve

 

[Humpty]

Tell me ONE place that hasn't got similar problems to what the OP described.

Down here in W/S Yorks it's the same. Ponte, Donny, Wakefield, Leeds etc it's the same

Leeds city centre is nothing like Middlesbrough’s centre. It’s had hundreds of millions invested in to and it’s a great place to live, work and play. There are homeless, it’s a big city after all, but there is no anti-social behaviour from them. You get occasional drink related behaviour but there’s no comparison to Middlesbrough centre. It’s fallen off a cliff.

 

[DCI_Gene_Hunt]

You could say vote labour council get the town you deserve

or you could say vote for Andy Preston and you get the town you deserve.

 

[agibbo]

Went into Middlesbrough shopping today and was quite shocked at people clearly high on illicit subtances walking around, unchallenged, shouting abuse at everyone and no one in particular, or singing and dancing wildly to the buskers music. I did spot two patrolling community support officers, or whatever they are named these days, who were laughing and joking as they strolled around. ( Coincidently, never in the vicinity of the anti social behaviour I observed at all) And the same noisy man was walking around shouting for quite a while.

There were elderly people and families trying to shop in peace and it is shocking that they have to be witness to this. At one point a man had left Poundstretchers, I think asked to leave by the store security man by the look of it, and he then casually strolled along hurling expletives at everyone. He was looking around wildly as if he was experiencing paranoid hallucinations. This sight, and men riding on bikes shouting at each other, though only feet apart, with voices like fog horns made for a very unpleasant experience. Why do people with empty heads make so much noise?

A woman marched along singing loudly, stopping occasionally to dance, with the shoppers parting at each side of her to make sure they was a distance between them and her due to her unpredictable behaviour. WTF is going on? Surely the Mayor as he walks from the town hall to the centre must observe all this?

What is our town coming to? and am I the only one observing this is disgust? I recall with nostalgia the late 1970s when walking through the town centre was a pleasurable experience, with no community support officers patrolling, and yet now we have more anti social behaviour that seems to go unchallenged. Maybe I am too old and have to accept that this is now the norm. I just think it is all so sad and avoidable.

Copy and paste Reading town centre, and more than likely hundreds more up and down the country.

 

[Youngie]

or you could say vote for Andy Preston and you get the town you deserve.

Im no fan of Preston but you can't blame him for the current state, its been 20+ years of decline.

I will blame him (and predecessors) for the poor and mismanaged investment in ridiculous schemes without focusing on the absolute basics first.

 

[Omega]

Copy and paste Reading town centre, and more than likely hundreds more up and down the country.

By the way I don’t blame labour. Their is no one to blame most the time but yourself. Their is no excuse for poor manners and bad behaviour

 

[London_Boro]

I used to love coming back to Boro for a visit to see the family, and having an evening out, or making a day of it in town on a matchday. Don't like it that much these days, perhaps it's because I'm getting older, but it just feels like something could kick off at any time, most of the time and just doesn't feel like a pleasant experience.

I tend to go to the Navi before games when back nowadays (althougth it's been a while due to covid), then back there for a few before home these days. That'll do me.

 

[DCI_Gene_Hunt]

Im no fan of Preston but you can't blame him for the current state, its been 20+ years of decline.

I will blame him (and predecessors) for the poor and mismanaged investment in ridiculous schemes without focusing on the absolute basics first.

I agree its not all down to him but he certainly hasn't done much to improve things (in my opinion)

Equally Middlesbrough Council (and lots of other places) are not to blame for the majority of problems we see now. The government have been in power for 11 years and a lot of the issues raised by the original poster are directly influenced by how the country has been ran by the Conservatives.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

Councils across the country are having to clean the mess up of over a decade of sheer incompetence by the government.

 

[DCI_Gene_Hunt]

Councils across the country are having to clean the mess up of over a decade of sheer incompetence by the government.

And Labour councils are not treated as equally as Conservative councils by those in power. Not hard to fathom out why.

 

[Glover_elbow]

Councils across the country are having to clean the mess up of over a decade of sheer incompetence by the government.

i would say it goes way further than that, all the way back the 80s and thatchers policies, before her there wasn't an underclass
she created the underclass which is 2nd and 3rd generation now. You treat people like **** which the tories did to the most vulnerable and needy and guess what you make things a whole lot worse.