SCUNTHORPE in Decline – One Of Many UK Towns Forgotten (Part 1)

Welcome to Scunthorpe. In this video we’re going to have a walk around the town. This is a proud industrial town. It has many people here that over generations have gone to the local steelworks.

But we’re going through difficulty. The towns and villages up and down the country in the UK are going through difficulty. This video and this documentary series is just going to highlight that, where we are currently in the journey.

So we’re going to go for a walk around. We’re going to talk about and share and showcase the difficulties that are being faced up and down the country.

The UK is a very stressful place right now and it’s people are worried. From young people to our pensioners, everyone is hurting and there appears little hope. This video shares my thoughts across different important topics for discussion.

Welcome to Scunthorpe. In this video we’re going to have
a walk around the town. This is a proud industrial town. It has many people here that
over generations have gone to the local steelworks. But we’re going through difficulty. The towns and villages up and
down the country in the UK are going through difficulty. This video and this documentary series
is just going to highlight that. Where we are currently in the journey. So we’re going to go for a walk around. I’m going to talk to the locals. We’re going to talk about and share
and showcase the difficulties that are being faced up and down the country. And this is just one small town with
proud people, generations of history, but we are going through really hard times. The goal of doing this is. Ultimately to work towards a greater
future of optimism of hope for our children and future generations to
come that although that the town has had difficulty and it’s had
challenges and the town centre is going through really, really challenges. There is a way forward, and
that’s what we hope that that is ultimately the outcome of this. So let’s go. Truth be told, I don’t very
often walk around Frodingham Road. I very rarely actually
walk up and down here. I think it’s like a perception, I
don’t know, it’s like, it’s just got that historical perception? I don’t know. Yeah, it does. Just lots of rubbish. You know I think there’s a lot of fundamental issues from challenges, obviously, growing up. That includes parenting, I think. I think. education, I think the
environment you know, if you are living in a environment like this
one, it’s hard to see anything other than it, you know, see what I mean? Also what ends up happening is, you
know, you, you look around and you see there’s lots of litter everywhere. I mean, I’m actually. So shocked, I mean, you see the sign
here, look, there’s a sign here, fly tippet, no rubbish excuses. Your rubbish is your responsibility. And the issue that you’ve got
is that is clearly not working. That’s not working right. Because you’ve got a sign
saying no rubbish, but then you’ve got rubbish everywhere. You see, when you see abandoned
buildings like this, it’s just going to attract more and more of the same. You know, you think of
the rodents, you think of, it’s clearly not healthy. And it’d be interesting to know,
does the council have any type of schedule to, to help in these areas? Everywhere you look, it’s
pretty much whether it’s empty alcohol bottles, rubbish, and if you look, I mean, think about it, you’ve got
one of the main streets here, and then literally just 10 yards away, you’ve got
outside somebody’s house or business. And you think to
yourself why do people turn to alcohol, alcohol? They’re trying to escape, aren’t they? Unfortunately, that is what happens. People get to a point where they
want to end their suffering. And one of the ways that they turn to,
unfortunately, is alcohol and drugs. And when you, when you think about it, turning to alcohol, drugs, crime,
is the saddest part of where a person can go to. Because it’s all to do with suffering,
it’s all to do with challenges. And all they want to do is, you know,
they I don’t know much about in terms of the addictions and things of this
nature, but you know, if you’re addicted to something that is number one you’ve got into a position where
you want to escape you want to do something to escape the reality that
you live in and then once it grips you it’s very difficult to get back You know what walking past
that gentleman he looks like he’s got a bed in his hand. You’ve got an NHS building here,
with litter everywhere outside. And that must be down
to the NHS doesn’t have the right funding to be able to clean its environment. Yeah. And that’s an issue, because you’d think,
you know, from a, from a public NHS, you would think that they would. Want to have the funds
available to clean, clean up. But like, if you look, sorry, if you look here, there are just
so many businesses that are just shut down, boarded up,
you know, as we walk down here, It appears to go like, shop’s
open, shop’s shut, shop’s shut, and once upon a time you’d have, every
shop was open, it was thriving. Looks like a new restaurant’s going here. That’s nice. When you think of a town centre, the
issue that you’ve got inside a town centre like this, because it’s dying, it’s dying. You’ve either got a bank, you’ve got
a pound shop, a savers shop, or a casino. Casino’s still open. A bargain shop. Costa and it’s just
there’s not much life anymore. I mean, what time are we on? Twelve o’clock. Twelve noon. It’s just not the same
anymore, unfortunately. There’s a whole lot of, I don’t
know, there’s like vape shops, right? Vape shops, bargain world. Basically the same shops,
just different names. Yes. Certainly appears that way. Whether you call it a bargain world
or you call it a pound stretcher. But that runs a lot deeper as well,
though, because the reason why that runs deeper is because
people are becoming the poorer. They don’t have the resources
to, once, you know, once upon a time, you actually had the ability
to go treat yourself to something. Now, the reason why all these, like,
pound shops and pound lands and pound stretcher, all these have become
necessity of where people are at. And that’s sad. Oh yeah, the floor, it just needs,
it needs everything kind of just jetting down, cleaning up
and being proud. I mean, again, we talk about,
pound shops and bargain shops, but one of the other things that comes with
that is like, pawnbroker shops or, you know, exchange shops like this. Because people look to, they
want to generate income. They want to sell things, right? They want to have like, I mean over
here, looks like, you’ve got David Jason and you’ve got Smiths that
both shut down, but then you’ve got a cash generator, open, thriving. Cut price foods. Everything is this is what I was
trying to say right at the beginning. You want it to be you
want to get to optimism. But your environment has a big
part to play in that optimism. When you look around and
you’ve got all these shops. Like these shops should
be open, full, thriving. You’ve got one, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, you’ve
literally got seven shops. All completely, eight with the card crazy. I remember when all this
was built, I can’t remember. It was like maybe, 15 years
ago, everywhere was built here. Maybe 20 years ago. Now the shops all moved in. And now they’re not. It’s really sad. Really sad. Really sad. One Beyond. Same thing. It’s either a bargain shop, or you’ve
got a Costa Coffee, or a Starbucks. You know, it just appears that that
is the level that we’ve got here. And you got a bus station. That, if you look at it all, it’s just had zero funding. No funding to clean, clean floors,
clean the, the glass roofs. You know? Very sad. Very sad. It’s just all shutting down, empty spaces. I thought when, when they
first, built all this. I thought everything was going to go
indoors, but you know, the whole town centre, but looking
at some of these empty shops now, even inside indoors where you can be
sheltered from the weather, they’re not surviving in here either are they? And when people do move in, they
can’t keep up with the demands of the stresses that are involved in just
paying for the rates and the rents, I mean, you’ve got
another, closing down sale here. Closing down sale. And that’s when you think about
this, this is actually got the, this is societal infrastructure. When you think of an ecosystem,
let’s call it like the Amazon rainforest, or let’s go to Antarctica. You’ve got ecosystems and the
plant animals, they thrive within those ecosystems. The issue that we have with this ecosystem
is people are struggling to thrive. Businesses struggling to stay open. Entrepreneurs, business owners
don’t want to take a risk because the rates are too expensive. The demands are too high. So if they’ve got no actual ability
to get started and there’s no real enthusiasm to there’s no reward at the
end of it apart from just stress and then shutting down nobody’s even wanting to
give it a try because the optimism is now gone right the belief is gone
and that’s the issue so when you look around now you have big chains you’ve
got Gregg’s, you’ve got Holland and Barrett you’ve got Subway you’ve got you know
o2, you’ve got Spec Savers these are all big companies that have the ability to
withstand, where you’ve got maybe a solo entrepreneur that wants to just start
a clothing brand, they want to start a little shop and they just don’t have the
capital resources to make it work. Essentially you, and this is the reason
why you end up with. Empty shops. It’s very sad. It’s because the, you know, when you
think of the, I go back to that ecosystem, if it’s not there to allow people to
have the ability to grow and break through, then it just kills everything. Everything just dies out. You can’t actually survive. And you know when it’s getting really bad,
as in really bad, when even the bigger, companies or banks,
they’re even close. So, I know for a fact that this
corner building, that was a bank, and they shut that, and they’ve got money. So, it’s now even impacting, the
the bigger companies as well or the banks are just going there’s no point in putting
any more resources in that let’s let it just kind of die away. They want to put
everything online It’s devastating really I mean today is a cold day and if
you are homeless and to be fair we haven’t actually seen many homeless
here this today to be honest But it’s cold, right? It’s cold. You’re not going to just be
out in the open when it’s so cold. And in actual fact, it’s actually warmer
than it was a couple of weeks ago. It was truly freezing a couple
of weeks ago, wasn’t it? How the thought of
an individual having to stay out all night, find a place to keep warm. It’s not just that though, they
get, they get moved on don’t they? They get moved on, yeah. Somebody comes along and just says, you
know, back up, you, you get moved on. It’s devastating really. But that’s also because this,
this charities, we support a we’ve supported a charity called
the forge, the forge project. And that does for homeless people to
do for food and some shelter. So I’m just some break from the weather,
but they don’t have the support. They don’t have the funding. They don’t have the ability to to actually
make a difference on a big scale, like, they’re doing, they’re doing amazing
work and it helps those individuals that are there, but it’s a bigger problem. Do you see what I mean? It really is. It really is. It’s been shut for a very long time. I remember when this first
came, it was… they put money into it, thriving place. Really good, really good
quality food, drink, and it just suffered like everything else. So that was just a walk around
Scunthorpe, just showing the current state of everything that’s been
experienced everything from the litter in the back alleys to there just is
no energy, it would appear inside the home, the high street itself. When you think of the shops shutting
down, when you think of the, there’s nothing really for people to come into
whether unless it’s a bargain shop, unless it’s a big brand, a big chain. And. We want to do our little bit to help
and that’s what we will continue to do. So this is actually our office here. Our Systemise Group office
and our mission just, just to be as optimistic as we possibly can
to make a difference in our town. And you know, across the series of
different news in this documentary that we do, you know, there is a lot to be positive about as well. There’s areas and there’s stories of
real positivity and optimism as well. It’s just a whole lot of,
unfortunately, infrastructure and support that the town needs. The government, I sent a video to
the local Labour MP last night, he’s not responded at this moment
in time and we’ll see. We’ll continue to do what we
possibly can for the people of Scunthorpe.