Dudley reacts to being branded West Midland's unhappiest town

Express & Star

Dudley locals have reacted to a new 'unhappy town' tag gifted to them by a Rightmove study which placed them last on the list of the West Midlands' happiest towns.

Transcript

00:00My name is Emma. I'm 48, I think. I'm from Netherton, Dudley.

00:08I'm surprised it's 18th on the list because it is a busy, popular place.

00:16There's always a lot of people around, which is why it could have been 18th on the list.

00:22But there's a lot of tourist attractions and a lot of things for people to see and places to go

00:29and a lot of history around. So I'm quite surprised it is so low.

00:34I think living in this local area is really good because you're handy to a lot of attractions

00:45and nice things to take the kids out if you've got kids or a lot of history around the area.

00:50There's a pretty decent town close to Merry Hill. There's quite a few places to go out and have something to eat.

00:58There's a lot of entertainment around the area and most of the people are pretty friendly, to be honest.

01:06So yeah, it's a pretty good place to be.

01:09My name is Amandeep Singh. I'm 26 years old. I'm from Dudley.

01:14The result of the study surprises me.

01:18Tell us why.

01:21Dudley is good, but only a few people make it work.

01:26But I think there are good people in here.

01:29We need more big companies around Dudley so they can come more here,

01:34rather than going to Merry Hill and stuff like that.

01:38Because who lives around here, they'd rather come to shop in Dudley town than go somewhere else,

01:45support their own town.

01:48Why is the area not good? Because of the kids, stubborn people at the moment.

01:55I know it's wrong, but they don't think there are so many people who are good as well.

02:02It's only a few people that make it worse than anything else.

02:06Say like, we had last week, there was a bunch of police was here.

02:11Kids got a knife or something.

02:15Say like, that went viral. Nobody's going to come to town.

02:19They're scared to come to the town just because of that.

02:23We don't have many securities. If we ring the police, they come after like three hours, four hours.

02:29But what's the point of the police coming after four hours when we need them straight away?

02:35We don't have a police at the street, walking around to help anyway.

02:40We need more shops to come down here. We need more people to, you know, we need more big shops.

02:47Because there's so many people around here, they do come to the town,

02:51but when they saw nothing, they're not going to come next time, do they?

02:56Yeah, I'm Graham Setherall. I'm age 60.

03:03I'm from Derby End in Netherton, and I work on Dudley Fruit and Vegetable, Dudley Town Centre.

03:10I mean, the folks seem alright to me, like, but there is some miserable people about.

03:17Like, 70% of them, quite, yeah.

03:22I don't mind, I don't mind people.

03:24I'm surprised it's last.

03:27I don't visit the other places, really, like Walsall or Roundton, I don't really do.

03:33Over there, that looks right, so.

03:35More shops open, bring some decent shops back here.

03:39I mean, you've got no beaches, no little woods, no all this, they've all gone.

03:43No Marks and Spencers, they've all gone.

03:46It's been nice to come up here when I was a kid.

03:49Just have a cup of tea at the top of Marks and Spencers, like, it's great.

03:53The only thing that brings Dudley down, really, at Town Centre, is the shoplifters.

03:57I mean, you see it nearly every day.

04:00Folks running out of boots with stuff running down there, and the boot staff chasing them.

04:05Then you've got the homeless sweeping the doorway.

04:09It don't help the area, you know what I mean, so.

04:12That's the only thing that brings Dudley down, really.

04:15I'm Paula Goodyear. I'm 55.

04:19I live in Dudley. I own a business in Dudley.

04:22And I am the uptaker.

04:25I'm not going to say that it doesn't surprise me.

04:28But I also think that, because of where you live, and these toilets, that everywhere is exactly the same.

04:33You can go to the cottage places, and I'll go to some places, and they're exactly run down as Dudley is.

04:39I think, since the COVID and that, people have really gone down.

04:42And the policing is a big problem, for the Lord's sake.

04:46Doesn't matter whether you're in Dudley or anywhere else, there's no policing, there's no assistance, wherever I'm going.

04:51The police station was obviously in the two streets away.

04:54So if there was a problem here, we could go to the police station.

04:57Now, I've heard it said to keep some random people, but I could only have them in if I went to Albury.

05:01So obviously, that is a big issue for me, as a personal thing.

05:05To say, well, obviously, the people walking the beach, see it come on.

05:09You don't. All you see is the community, and they expect you to do a police job.

05:14Because they can't do anything.

05:16So I think, since the police station has gone, that has made a drastic difference.

05:21I wouldn't move from Dudley.

05:23You wouldn't move from Dudley?

05:24I only live five minutes away from here.

05:26And I've lived in that same property 30 years.

05:28But I wouldn't put up sticks to move somewhere by Bridge North, or something like that.

05:32And we could do some big traffic up there.

05:34A bit of Highmark, or a bit of Mark, or something like that, to bring people back into it really.

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