Coastal towns they forgot to close down
As I finished work early today I thought I'd write a long rambling blog about how lives can be improved through a jobs guarantee scheme. Sarah O'Connor from the Financial Times wrote an excellent article today on Blackpool. Although it was about Blackpool it could easily have been written about just about any of the non-posh towns in the UK and it got me thinking. The article mentions a phrase "shit life syndrome" which isn't meant to be pejorative but to convey the bleak social, emotional and physical problems associated with the grind of poverty and hopelessness. It is something I saw a lot in my time in local government. Reading the case files was depressing enough, let alone having to live it. These poor towns get trapped in a cycle of doom when the young and healthy move out and the poor and unhealthy move in - attracted by affordable rent. Boredom leads to problems with drink and drugs and the downward spiral continues. It is a familiar tale and ...