Out of sight, out of mind, so the old adage goes, writes our Dudley Man Mark Mudie.

Two events in two town centres in Dudley suggest increasingly that the source of our collective ignorance is an underlying apathy. Namely, not that we do not see but rather we turn a blind eye.

First, in an image captured on police CCTV, smoke billows out from a bookmakers in Brierley Hill High Street and into the road. Two cars are pictured passing the burning building, set alight by arsonists at 11.30pm. The emergency services did not receive a single call about the fire, picked up by a camera operator at Sedgley control room.

Then, officers raided a huge cannabis factory sited audaciously in Stourbridge town centre. Just off the high street, a stone’s throw from shops and yards from a busy pub, a former travel agent’s was the setting for an unlikely drugs operation which lay undiscovered for months.

What was remarkable in both instances was that they failed to draw remark. Drivers simply drove on by as a betting shop blazed; shoppers strolled past while the pungent smell of 2,000 sprouting cannabis plants filled the air.

The William Hill inferno was, then, certainly not out of sight. And the Stourbridge drugs den was not out of scent – punters at the nearby Mitre routinely commented on the distinctive aroma wafting into the pub, landlord Mike Cartwright said.

And in both cases the public’s failure to report could have had serious consequences. But for CCTV the fire at the bookies could have spread to neighbouring businesses, landing a bigger blow to Brierley Hill’s ailing high street.

And hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of drugs were set for the streets when, admittedly, a late tip-off alerted police.

A couple of thoughts. Perhaps the presence of cameras on every corner in our surveillance society has dimmed our sense of civic duty – somebody else will see it, surely?

But I fear it goes much deeper than that. These happenings, within days of each other, are stark reminders of how far the very fabric of community has unravelled.

In bygone years the whiff of weed passing up a high street would have been the talk of the town within minutes. But trawling the streets of Stourbridge, reporter was informing resident about events on their doorsteps.

Evidence has long been mounting of the apathy which afflicts today’s fragmented society. Area committee meetings, once a lively forum featuring a frank exchange of views, are now a sad shadow of their former selves.

Campaigns over controversial issues are led by pensioners; national politics let alone local democracy turns off the youth of today.

Sadly the drift into disengagement and disillusionment may prove difficult to remedy.

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Set in this context it is perhaps unsurprising that initiatives such as three-hour ‘relationship workshops’ are being rolled out for teenagers by Dudley Council. Bosses have seen fit to introduce lessons in life which you might expect to be taught within the confines of the family home or school classroom.

These sessions only serve to undermine the parental role, while failing to replace the important input a mother and father should have. They are part of the problem, not the solution.

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A confession. ‘Traffic chaos’ stories are not what I got into journalism for. Far from it. But when you spend three-and-a-half hours making your usual half-hour journey to work, you understand why crawling cars are big news.