Joseph Rowntree Foundation Study: Uk's Most Declining Cities Report

[Jack Dawe]

Maybe this is one factor in clubs like Huddersfield and Bradford offering dirt-cheap season tickets? People there have less money than people around here (broadly speaking). I'd imagine SL spends his days on Guernsey looking at reports like this and the figures therein. 

Here are the 24 cities/towns (pop 100,000 plus) with the highest rate of relative decline:

1. Rochdale.

2. Burnley

3. Bolton

4. Blackburn

5. Hull

6. Grimsby

7. Dundee

8. Middlesbrough

9. Bradford

10. Blackpool

11. Stoke on Trent

12. Wigan

13. Nottingham

14. Huddersfield

15. Sunderland

16. Glasgow

17. Belfast

18. Birkenhead

19. Liverpool

20. Newport

21. Sheffield

22. Barnsley

23. Telford

24. Birmingham

 

Nine Championship clubs involved there. And more bad news for Bolton. We really should be taking advantage - or making better use - of the business wealth around us, which the club will be doing from next season, with the new stand finished. We might be miles from the football heartlands and hotbeds but we do have some advantages over "the likes of" Bolton, Burnley, Huddersfield etc. It is time we made the most of this one particular advantage. It is time for us to really go to town and take advantage of the corporate money in Bristol and the south west and make us more competitive financially.

I wonder how else we can persuade business/corporate types to boost our budget?

But don't be surprised if we continue to pay more to watch our football. Just take a stroll up North Street and admire the independent coffee shops, the deli, the quality butcher, the artisan breadmaker, the bijou eateries, the gentrification, and marvel at the thought of Andre Gray living in a dark, satanic area like Burnley. Don't know how he does it....

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

4 minutes ago, Jack Dawe said:

Maybe this is one factor in clubs like Huddersfield and Bradford offering dirt-cheap season tickets? People there have less money than people around here (broadly speaking). I'd imagine SL spends his days on Guernsey looking at reports like this and the figures therein. 

Here are the 24 cities/towns (pop 100,000 plus) with the highest rate of relative decline:

1. Rochdale.

2. Burnley

3. Bolton

4. Blackburn

5. Hull

6. Grimsby

7. Dundee

8. Middlesbrough

9. Bradford

10. Blackpool

11. Stoke on Trent

12. Wigan

13. Nottingham

14. Huddersfield

15. Sunderland

16. Glasgow

17. Belfast

18. Birkenhead

19. Liverpool

20. Newport

21. Sheffield

22. Barnsley

23. Telford

24. Birmingham

 

Nine Championship clubs involved there. And more bad news for Bolton. We really should be taking advantage - or making better use - of the business wealth around us, which the club will be doing from next season, with the new stand finished. We might be miles from the football heartlands and hotbeds but we do have some advantages over "the likes of" Bolton, Burnley, Huddersfield etc. It is time we made the most of this one particular advantage. It is time for us to really go to town and take advantage of the corporate money in Bristol and the south west and make us more competitive financially.

I wonder how else we can persuade business/corporate types to boost our budget?

But don't be surprised if we continue to pay more to watch our football. Just take a stroll up North Street and admire the independent coffee shops, the deli, the quality butcher, the artisan breadmaker, the bijou eateries, the gentrification, and marvel at the thought of Andre Gray living in a dark, satanic area like Burnley. Don't know how he does it....

The countryside outside of places like Burnley is lovely though. Doubt he's house sharing in a back to back!

But yes, I agree with your post. So many ex players have opted to stay in the area after retiring....should emphasise the quality of life issues.

[Natchfever]

Interesting isn't it - all the government money poured into the likes of Liverpool Glasgow and Sheffield for years (when relatively speaking we got/get Jack Shit) and they are apparently declining.

Much of the wealth moving into Bristol is from people who have absolutely no interest in BCFC and would possibly like us to go somewhere else.

[Eddie Hitler]

6 minutes ago, Loon plage said:

Interesting isn't it - all the government money poured into the likes of Liverpool Glasgow and Sheffield for years (when relatively speaking we got/get Jack Shit) and they are apparently declining.

Much of the wealth moving into Bristol is from people who have absolutely no interest in BCFC and would possibly like us to go somewhere else.

It's like the "City of Culture" awards: if you genuinely are a "City of Culture" already then you don't get it because it's there to try to encouarge some in awful places like lIverpool and Glasgow.

Bristol doesn't get such awards or government money because it's brilliant. 

[Red Rag]

Interesting that almost all are northern cities. Must be a reason for that quirk.

[Jack Dawe]

11 minutes ago, Loon plage said:

Interesting isn't it - all the government money poured into the likes of Liverpool Glasgow and Sheffield for years (when relatively speaking we got/get Jack Shit) and they are apparently declining.

Much of the wealth moving into Bristol is from people who have absolutely no interest in BCFC and would possibly like us to go somewhere else.

So we go after the wealth that isn't in the "much" that you mention there, of which there is a lot, much even, and much more than the small northern towns listed above, hence the advantage we have. I think you will also find that not all private boxes at all football grounds are bought by people that support that particular club. 

 

[Barrs Court Red]

3 minutes ago, Red Rag said:

Interesting that almost all are northern cities. Must be a reason for that quirk.

Labour led councils with no ambition to improve?

[Eddie Hitler]

3 minutes ago, Red Rag said:

Interesting that almost all are northern cities. Must be a reason for that quirk.

They used to have huge amounts of industry there and expanded with people coming to work in the shipyards, steel mills, cotton mills etc.

That industry relocated to low wage economies decades ago rendering the reason for the city and all the people being there null and void, but because people have lived there for generations a lot of them want to stay there.  Hence big levels of unemployment and deprivation and long inevitable continuing decline.

There are exceptions like Sunderland where they got the huge Nissan factory to replace the shipyards but they can't all do that.  They are Britain's own smaller scale Detroits - cities without a purpose or a future.

[WhistleHappy]

9 minutes ago, Red Rag said:

Interesting that almost all are northern cities. Must be a reason for that quirk.

...but Pauline lives down south in Buckinghamshire though..

[Portishead Puffin]

29 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

They used to have huge amounts of industry there and expanded with people coming to work in the shipyards, steel mills, cotton mills etc.

That industry relocated to low wage economies decades ago rendering the reason for the city and all the people being there null and void, but because people have lived there for generations a lot of them want to stay there.  Hence big levels of unemployment and deprivation and long inevitable continuing decline.

There are exceptions like Sunderland where they got the huge Nissan factory to replace the shipyards but they can't all do that.  They are Britain's own smaller scale Detroits - cities without a purpose or a future.

I have often wondered why businesses that are investing in the new energies such as wind and solar are not looking to base their manufacturing in those areas. I know that Belfast is now doing a lot of building of Wind turbine blades, but the amount of transferrable skills that are going to waste is a real shame. It will only take a generation or two for those skills to disappear completely.

[Eddie Hitler]

2 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

I have often wondered why businesses that are investing in the new energies such as wind and solar are not looking to base their manufacturing in those areas. I know that Belfast is now doing a lot of building of Wind turbine blades, but the amount of transferrable skills that are going to waste is a real shame. It will only take a generation or two for those skills to disappear completely.

Unfortunately it's because China undercuts everything. Their people work stupidly long hours for a fraction of the wages we pay.  All the solar panels (for example) come in from there and have halved in price over the last five years.  We can't compete with that with our wages which are driven by our high housing costs - it's not like British workers are being "greedy" these days, they have to pay sky high rents / house prices and I know a lot of "working poor".

Ultimately the world cannot keep buying things from China and selling hardly anything to them; China currently funds this by buying the debt issuances of western countries (particularly the US) but this obviously isn't sustainable. Where it goes to from here is anybody's guess but stable and sustainable it isn't.

[Natchfever]

48 minutes ago, Jack Dawe said:

So we go after the wealth that isn't in the "much" that you mention there, of which there is a lot, much even, and much more than the small northern towns listed above, hence the advantage we have. I think you will also find that not all private boxes at all football grounds are bought by people that support that particular club. 

 

The cities I quoted above aren't "small northern towns" Jack and having spent time in all of them they have pretty much everything we have (and more) courtesy of billions taxpayers money.

Comparatively speaking we have had fork all central funding which is wrong in my opinion and a major contributory factor towards our shit transport infrastructure and lack of .an arena for example.

I take your point about boxes but i'm unsure how many of ours are unsold ?

[Portishead Puffin]

43 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

Unfortunately it's because China undercuts everything. Their people work stupidly long hours for a fraction of the wages we pay.  All the solar panels (for example) come in from there and have halved in price over the last five years.  We can't compete with that with our wages which are driven by our high housing costs - it's not like British workers are being "greedy" these days, they have to pay sky high rents / house prices and I know a lot of "working poor".

Ultimately the world cannot keep buying things from China and selling hardly anything to them; China currently funds this by buying the debt issuances of western countries (particularly the US) but this obviously isn't sustainable. Where it goes to from here is anybody's guess but stable and sustainable it isn't.

Capitalism eh?  

[Eddie Hitler]

11 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Capitalism eh?  

Globalism more like.

Great for big corporations but a leveller for workers.  I would not want to be an unskilled school leaver looking for a job these days.

[Fiale]

1 hour ago, Eddie Hitler said:

Unfortunately it's because China undercuts everything. Their people work stupidly long hours for a fraction of the wages we pay.  All the solar panels (for example) come in from there and have halved in price over the last five years.  We can't compete with that with our wages which are driven by our high housing costs - it's not like British workers are being "greedy" these days, they have to pay sky high rents / house prices and I know a lot of "working poor".

Ultimately the world cannot keep buying things from China and selling hardly anything to them; China currently funds this by buying the debt issuances of western countries (particularly the US) but this obviously isn't sustainable. Where it goes to from here is anybody's guess but stable and sustainable it isn't.

Well as China moves contiunes to grow it's service industries (which are growing faster that it's manufacturing) and pay rises (as it will) then you will find Vietnam, India, etc stepping up for cheap labour. We still make a lot in the UK, wages have however stagnated but overall costs of living is not to bad (but any labour market with more supply than demand will do this). Rent's is a huge issue, swallow up far to much of peoples pay, but  if you have 300,000 + people a year coming into the country but do not make the housing for them, then rents were always going to be a problem. I am actually amazed it is not a bigger issue currently.

[RedRock]

8 minutes ago, Fiale said:

Well as China moves contiunes to grow it's service industries (which are growing faster that it's manufacturing) and pay rises (as it will) then you will find Vietnam, India, etc stepping up for cheap labour. We still make a lot in the UK, wages have however stagnated but overall costs of living is not to bad (but any labour market with more supply than demand will do this). Rent's is a huge issue, swallow up far to much of peoples pay, but  if you have 300,000 + people a year coming into the country but do not make the housing for them, then rents were always going to be a problem. I am actually amazed it is not a bigger issue currently.

Yeah, let's build a city the size of Bristol every year to accommodate the migrants to keep housing costs down then we can swallow up more green space, trash the remains bits of our wildlife,  import more food and energy, increase pressure on our infrastructure.

It's unsustainable, but the Tories - who sell off their land for development for obscene amounts of money, want cheap labour to increase their profit/markets  - won't do anything about it and neither will Labour - as they just want to import more potential (poor) voters. 

China's having a larf, they've sussed capitalism and democracy and are exploiting it for their own benefit. Our selfish politicians ain't bothered one bit. Don't even mention the totally hypocritical 'greens', who are an absolute waste of space  and are just a bunch of lefties who've hijacked the environmental agenda. 

Up the City! 

[Eddie Hitler]

18 minutes ago, Fiale said:

Well as China moves contiunes to grow it's service industries (which are growing faster that it's manufacturing) and pay rises (as it will) then you will find Vietnam, India, etc stepping up for cheap labour. We still make a lot in the UK, wages have however stagnated but overall costs of living is not to bad (but any labour market with more supply than demand will do this). Rent's is a huge issue, swallow up far to much of peoples pay, but  if you have 300,000 + people a year coming into the country but do not make the housing for them, then rents were always going to be a problem. I am actually amazed it is not a bigger issue currently.

There is a massive problem with housing but I agree that it's not really showing itself as the major issue it should be.  Possibly because it's a huge problem for a lot of unrelated indviudals who are mostly in work and struggling to make ends meet so are not about to come onto the streets and riot about it.  Combine that with the "I'm alright Jack" attitude of the homeowner that thinks the value of their house can keep going up indefinitely and you have an issue too complicated for most politicians to sort out.  So they'll leave it until mortgage rates inevitably rise triggering repossessions, negative equity, bankruptcies and mass homelessness.  Then the politicians might get around to doing something.

[Fiale]

8 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

There is a massive problem with housing but I agree that it's not really showing itself as the major issue it should be.  Possibly because it's a huge problem for a lot of unrelated indviudals who are mostly in work and struggling to make ends meet so are not about to come onto the streets and riot about it.  Combine that with the "I'm alright Jack" attitude of the homeowner that thinks the value of their house can keep going up indefinitely and you have an issue too complicated for most politicians to sort out.  So they'll leave it until mortgage rates inevitably rise triggering repossessions, negative equity, bankruptcies and mass homelessness.  Then the politicians might get around to doing something.

Sounds about right, this country enjoys firefighting more than pre-empting.

[phantom]

Misleading title - many of them aren't cities, even the size of some of the towns makes the report unbalanced

Of course to tie it in to footballing terms, you'd need the majority of supporters to live within that town

[Fiale]

Always thought that something like these might help with some housing. Let people grow their property as they have the money to do so, but give a nice cheap options to start with. A lot more flexible than making flats/houses with confined space (like many of the new builds are).

 

 

 

[Robin101]

4 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

They used to have huge amounts of industry there and expanded with people coming to work in the shipyards, steel mills, cotton mills etc.

That industry relocated to low wage economies decades ago rendering the reason for the city and all the people being there null and void, but because people have lived there for generations a lot of them want to stay there.  Hence big levels of unemployment and deprivation and long inevitable continuing decline.

There are exceptions like Sunderland where they got the huge Nissan factory to replace the shipyards but they can't all do that.  They are Britain's own smaller scale Detroits - cities without a purpose or a future.

Liverpool is still Britain's biggest port and is expanding. Hardly without a purpose. 

[leadman]

5 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

It's like the "City of Culture" awards: if you genuinely are a "City of Culture" already then you don't get it because it's there to try to encouarge some in awful places like lIverpool and Glasgow.

Bristol doesn't get such awards or government money because it's brilliant. 

Liverpool and Glasgow are awful places, when did that happen????

[leadman]

36 minutes ago, Robin101 said:

Liverpool is still Britain's biggest port and is expanding. Hardly without a purpose. 

got to be Felixstowe, I would question if lpool was even top 5

 

[Eddie Hitler]

14 minutes ago, leadman said:

Liverpool and Glasgow are awful places, when did that happen????

Glasgow - 1974

Liverpool - 1980

[Lanterne Rouge]

1 hour ago, leadman said:

Liverpool and Glasgow are awful places, when did that happen????

I think it`s that urban utopia Hull this year!

[havanatopia]

 

2 hours ago, Fiale said:

Well as China moves contiunes to grow it's service industries (which are growing faster that it's manufacturing) and pay rises (as it will) then you will find Vietnam, India, etc stepping up for cheap labour. We still make a lot in the UK, wages have however stagnated but overall costs of living is not to bad (but any labour market with more supply than demand will do this). Rent's is a huge issue, swallow up far to much of peoples pay, but  if you have 300,000 + people a year coming into the country but do not make the housing for them, then rents were always going to be a problem. I am actually amazed it is not a bigger issue currently.

Already happening. Many manufactured products are now cheaper than China. I like dealing with Vietnam a lot more than China as well which always helps.

34 minutes ago, leadman said:

got to be Felixstowe, I would question if lpool was even top 5

 

While Felixstowe is the busiest container port, by some margin, at 3.74 million TEU's (40% of the UK total) with London 2nd and Southampton third it lags behind both and Liverpool in total tonnage.

But I doubt many would have put Grimsby/Immingham as Britain's busiest port by tonnage and by some margin:-

1. G&I - 62.6 Million Tonnes (Oil and Gas processing?)

2. London - 43.2

3. Milford Haven - 41.1 (that'll be the Qatar Gas ships)

4. Tees & Hartlepool - 37.6

5. Southampton - 35.8

6. Liverpool - 31.1

7. Forth - 26.4

8. Felixstowe - 26.2 

The Dover and Belfast making up the top 10.

Bristol does not even get a mention; maybe if Freeman scored the odd goal they would.

Liquid bulk accounts for 40% of all tonnage so that explains these rather less known ports.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434702/port-freight-statistics-2013_revised.pdf

 

[havanatopia]

1 hour ago, Robin101 said:

Liverpool is still Britain's biggest port and is expanding. Hardly without a purpose. 

That report from gov.uk shows a 5% decline for the last two years where statistics are officially available unless you have a more up to date report.

[Jack Dawe]

Well, I don't know about migrants, and China, and where the biggest port is, I'm just saying there is wealth in this area to be tapped in to, that this area is not an area in decline or struggling (broadly speaking, compared to the places listed above) and that the cashing-in on the willingness of corporate types to wine and dine their clients/friends/whoever is possibly something we can do better at than some clubs in some of the economically struggling areas in that list.

I'm wondering if we need more corporate hospitality, to squeeze the pips of the business types to the max and increase our transfer budget?

I'm also wondering if we will and if we should be paying more for our tickets, not less, given the prosperity in this area? If we want to see PL football here, can we be "competitive" financially by dropping prices?

Or should corporate hospitality income go towards keeping season tickets low and affordable, rather than into the pocket of the next Andre Gray, someone to score 20+ goals in this league?

[leadman]

2 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

Glasgow - 1974

Liverpool - 1980

but not now

[Robin101]

5 hours ago, leadman said:

got to be Felixstowe, I would question if lpool was even top 

 

 

4 hours ago, havanatopia said:

That report from gov.uk shows a 5% decline for the last two years where statistics are officially available unless you have a more up to date report.

My mistake. I believe it's still the biggest port for ships coming from north America, must have got confused.

It is set to expand however, like I said.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21582300-developments-one-northern-port-suggest-how-industry-changing-lock-and-quay

So hardly without purpose, anyway.