Opinion : Autumn has arrived in High Wycombe

Autumn is has arrived in High Wycombe.

The leaves are falling from the trees, the clocks have gone back and there appear to be more tramps begging on the streets of Wycombe.

So what does all this mean for Wycombe?

Well, the fallen leaves can be swept up, now we are on GMT the evenings will be darker and the influx of tramps will mean the people of Wycombe will have to take care walking on the pavements in case they trip over a vagrant sleeping on the pavement.

The other day, while on my lunchtime walk around the town centre, my good self happened to walk down Bull Lane towards Frogmoor.

As yours truly exited Bull Lane and entered the vast concrete wasteland we now call Frogmoor your humble servant happened to notice a tramp sitting close by on the pavement.

The gentleman of the road was half asleep however my footsteps woke the unfortunate who jumped to it and started to knock out a tune on a harmonica. In his other had was a large plastic bottle of cider.

The old boy looked towards the hat laying on the pavement in front of him directing me to put some spare change in. Of course I didn’t.

Whenever my good self goes to Marlow shopping one never sees any beggars there, so why are there so many in Wycombe? It is perhaps because Wycombe is a soft touch town for gentlemen of the road?

What hope do the shopkeepers of Wycombe have in the run up to Christmas if the town is full of tramps? Surely they will put the customers off and Wycombe town centre will take another step down as businesses close due to lack of trade?

The other day a friend happened to show me a news story, originally published in 2016, about a town which pays the train fares for homeless people to leave. Perhaps this is the sort of scheme that we need in Wycombe?

Reading through the news article the town in question even adopted a ‘controversial strategy to drive rough sleepers away from the travel interchange [which] involved playing bagpipe music through the night‘.

Maybe Wycombe needs to employ a town bagpipe player to walk around the town centre at night? If the vagrants can’t sleep they are sure to move on.

Such a strategy might also help to rid the town centre of the gigantic number of pigeons that swoop down on unsuspecting passers by during the daytime.

Wycombe has many problems that need tackling and the high number of beggars on the streets of the town must surely be a top priority at this time of year?

To be frank with you my good self doesn’t particularly enjoy walking around the town shopping with so many unfortunates around. Indeed I am even thinking of doing all my Christmas shopping in Marlow this year as the town is cleaner, has better shops and is generally several notches above Wycombe.

How many more people feel the same as me and will also spend their money outside Wycombe this Christmas?

What hope does our town have? Wycombe needs to get its act together.

What do you think?

My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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