Every town here in the SE has overcrowded schools, hospitals, roads and everything else

the SE is overcrowded. It wants more water from the river Severn. If that were a bank account it would be bankrupt. It is the metrocentricity of it all - London has to have, and those that commute to there live around it. Money talks. In an ideal world the there would be a more equitable spread of opportunity. To a lesser degree it applies to other cities and thence to towns pro rata.

Let's face it homo sapiens is the pollution. There is little in the way of solution there, IMNSHO.