'I don't tell people I live here... I am embarrassed'
| Published date | 22 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
Apart from Elegance Nails, a nail and beauty salon in Market Place where she is a customer, Vicky cannot think of much else worthy of praise.
She admits to being too embarrassed to tell people where she's from.
She jokes that I might get 'mugged' if I stray down the wrong alleyway and says: "Dewsbury is rough now.
"It started to decline about 20 years ago.
"My mum-in-law doesn't come down - she is too scared.
"She is 77 and is worried about groups of young men drinking and fighting.
"She is very intimidated." Vicky, from Hanging Heaton, Dewsbury, says there is a street drinking culture in the town centre that the authorities turn a blind eye to.
"I have seen the police walking past them while they are drinking.
"They don't do anything." She is Dewsbury born and bred but says she only ventures into town once a fortnight.
"It's very sad, but it's the same all over England, in all towns."
Vicky thinks some locals stay away from the town centre because of "undesirables".
She wants to see a greater police presence to reassure people.
A few more shops might tempt people back, but in recent weeks the town centre lost Peacocks and the Quality
Save discount supermarket.
"If Peacocks was still here, I would be in there," she says.
"For clothes, I would go to the White Rose Centre in Leeds."
She is sad about the demise of her town.
"Dewsbury was one of the finest towns around," she says.
"[But now] I don't tell people I come from Dewsbury. I am embarrassed."
Christine Dawson is heading to a coffee shop when the Examiner catches up with her in the town centre.
She says: "There's nothing at all. "Peacocks has closed, Quality Save has closed and some public houses, although I don't drink myself.
"I don't think the town centre will get back to where it was.
"It's gone too far downhill. "Young ones are moving to Scarborough and where the jobs are.
"If I am not on my [mobility] scooter, I go to Morley which is very busy, or Wakefield."
Christine does like one spot and that's Town Cafe, which is renowned for its fresh coffee and Turkish-style food.
Mohammed, 52, a stockbroker who is waiting for a lift from the revamped Dewsbury station, says the town centre had got 'worse' in the past month due to further shop closures.
The lack of shops isn't good for community cohesion, he says, as it chips away at a sense of community...
To continue reading
Request your trial