Passing through Oldham yesterday, I noted how the area coming into the Town centre, Mumps, was, well, a complete utter fucking state really. Looks like Threads happened.
Shops that have been boarded up for ages, being joined by more boarded up shops. The town centres been contracting for some time, the recession has barely accelerated it such was the pace of the decay.
There are two shopping centres, and I think the council taxpayer is still paying for the concrete monstrosity of the 70's that was St Peters precinct, demolished almost two decades ago. Both aren't exactly filled with quality stores, although to be fair there are some. But still, you could comfortably get away with just the one.
The town used to famed for it's market, the Tommyfield, and it's nightlife. Both of these the council have seen fit to obliterate, whilst offering no alternatives. It's no wonder the locals enjoy getting pissed to death.
The nightlife has seen the number of pubs in the town centre quartered, and where once Thursday and Sunday nights were noisy, good natured affairs, weekends having more of an edge with a few idiots thrown in for the mix. Now Thursdays and Sundays have taken on a more funereal air, with Fridays and Saturdays equally quiet, until around 11pm when taxis filled with drunken louts, some of them gangs from surrounding areas, enter the fray.
They pile into the handful of remaining pubs and last two proper clubs to drink more and indulge in a few illegal drugs. If you're caught with drugs, your barred for a while - no one wants to call the police, they might close the place down or chase out what customers remain.
After midnight they start drifting out in fits and starts, almost like the drinking dens are undergoing a vomiting fit, and they head towards the one growth industry left in Oldham. Fast food.
Yorkshire Street looks like the set of Blade Runner, only designed by Johnny Vegas. Pits selling kebabs, pizzas and burgers that have the fat content of John Prescott. They're open most of the time, most of the week - there are those who question how they make a profit, after all they're only busy a small percentage of their opening hours, and to those I suggest reading up on money laundering.
They're not all at it, but when you have 19 (soon to be 20) places, the majority offering little different from the rest, to a constantly contracting audience, you know all is not above board.
A once sprawling nightlife has been focussed into a small area, where once the idiots where widespread they've been concentrated into a few pubs. Where once you could escape the ones looking for a fight, now you have to go to Manchester to do that.
There's no cinema, no bowling alleys, nothing for people to do but, well, get pissed, eat crap and beat the shit out of each other in an effort to detract from the air of aspiration slitting it's own wrists in despair.
Oldham's dying. You can smell the decay in the air, you can see it in peoples eyes, you can see it in the empty shops, empty pubs and a once thriving outdoor market that looks like the plague came a-calling.
It's a shame, as outside the town centre and built up parts, it's beautiful. There is some lovely countryside, and as you head towards the Pennines some reasonable locales. Greenfield. Uppermill. Delph. Denshaw. Fields, country pubs and fresh air.
Oldham has all the ingredients for success, however when the local council's the one doing the cooking a big heap of stinking failure is always what we get. They've stuck the knife in repeatedly, and are now twisting it, yet somehow, despite all the failures, despite destroying the town, they somehow think they're doing right. They're not bad, they're mad. Trying to turn the town into an asylum of their own making.
They've certainly recreated Bedlam, and to no ones benefit.
It's not the only town this is happening to, and that just makes it all the worse.
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