That have been no coal belching chimneys in major cities since the late 60's due to the clean air act, and in 1993 the whole country went smokeless. I remember it well, growing up in the NE of England. I lived in the centre of Bradford from 1973 to 1976 and then at Odsal Top, a few miles out, in 1977 and there were definitely no rows of coal belching fires, the whole city was smokeless.
Rippendon and Rishworth are hardly representative of Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax, and being rural, the clean air act will not have applied to them until 1993 so you may have been unlucky in that respect, although the transition to smokeless coal was pretty quick - my parent's terraced house was converted to smokeless a few years before Mam died in 1995.
Attached houses is hardly 3rd world, it comes from a population of over 40 million in an area the size of Louisiana, with large tracts set aside as National Parks (National Trust in England).
I have to agree with the "lager louts" spilling out from the pubs after closing time, but that is an endemic problem with all towns in the UK these days at weekends. It was a problem in the 80's and 90's and is MUCH worse now.