I had a nice surprise today when I learned the Guardian Society blog was running a story on my Street Fighters project, after hearing about it through a post I’d written for New Start yesterday. I’m touched – and encouraged – by how nice they were about the work. I was starting to lose heart with it all again – I have phases where I really get fed up with the indifference I feel like I meet to all the subjects I cover and I’m going through one of those at the moment. My fault no doubt for picking unglamourous and rather ‘worthy’ topics but I frequently miss the support and instant feedback I used to get when working on daily newspapers. So thank you Patrick and Society for giving me heart. Now to find some funding because working unpaid while also studying part-time is not good for my mental state….
I have a blog post about my regeneration work on the New Start website today. All 40-odd written stories to date – along with 25 or so more recent portrait/audio pieces on people affected by CPO – can be seen on my Street Fighters site.
Mary Huxham spent almost 70 years living on Powis Street in Liverpool’s L8 neighbourhood, before moving to a new property nearby to make way for its demolition and regeneration. She’s supported the local Housing Market Renewal partnership, New Heartlands, from the start, and argues that much of the housing in the area has long been beyond repair.
Nina Edge lives a few streets away from Huxham’s former home but her views are very different. Her Victorian villa – along with all the properties on her side of Kelvin Grove – has also been earmarked for demolition under the Welsh Streets scheme, despite being highly desirable and in good condition. She is fighting to save her street and is convinced that modern techniques could be used to bring most of the properties down for clearance under the scheme back up to a decent standard.
** I have consolidated all my regeneration work – including four years worth of written pieces and more recent multimedia pieces – on a dedicated website, STREET FIGHTERS. Please check it out **
Dave Hynes (top), feels like he is living in the countryside now all the neighbouring properties have been demolished. Meanwhile East Manchester resident Bill Booth (bottom) is sick of living in limbo, not knowing whether his house will stay up or come down. Just two more streetfighters.
** I have consolidated all my regeneration work – including four years worth of written pieces and more recent multimedia pieces – on a dedicated website, STREET FIGHTERS. Please check it out **
Last month opponents of the planned demolition of two streets in Goole, a small town in East Yorkshire, were finally given a public inquiry at which they got to air their objections to the scheme, which is being financed under the last government’s Housing Market Renewal scheme. Not that it is likely to make a difference, mind – in March the man behind the national scheme admitted to me in a Big Issue in the North interview that the outcome of these hearings tend to be a foregone conclusion anyway (which residents of course already know). In any case, the results will take six weeks or more to arrive, after which the houses will probably move to council ownership and be bulldozed to make way for new build. Here former resident Gordon Crook, who opposes their clearance, gives his thoughts on the matter.
….and he’s still waiting to be be chucked out of his house.
Last time I saw him he suffered three of what I can only assume were panic attacks in an hour. His face kind of crumples up into a heart-breaking mask of pain while they’re happening. They are terrifying to watch, so I can’t imagine how they must feel for him. It’s the stress that brings them on, he says.
Anyway I did my best to get Elijah’s story out there to a wider public but I’ve never struggled more with any story since going freelance. Two national papers took it and then spiked it (unless the second one used it over the last few days that is – now pretty doubtful). A national TV broadcaster was interested, and then wasn’t. Each time I had to tell Elijah, got his hopes up, and then he was let down. The problem is that it looks like me who’s done the stringing along and letting down.
A regional magazine has at least used it and now it looks like a current affairs radio show may also highlight his story. I am keeping everything crossed that they follow through with it. I don’t believe it can change anything for Elijah – since the ownership of his house has already legally transferred to Oldham Council under a Compulsory Purchase Order – but from his point of view, at least it will kick the authorities in the teeth with a little adverse publicity.
I hope he manages to enjoy his 90th, despite the dispicable way he’s being treated by the powers that be. Let’s just listen to his words again…..
Ann Hillman was the lynchpin of the campaign against the clearance of two streets in central Barrow-in-Furness (Cumbria) but she finally moved from her lifelong home just days before Christmas 2009.
Here she describes how her community lost heart as the council planned its demolition. No firm plans are in place for the streets being bulldozed.
I first met Gary Loftus and Jonathan Cross in spring 2007 and stayed in close touch with them over a period of about six months, until they were ready to go public with a huge list of complaints they had about the new property they had bought off plan in Beswick, part of the New East Manchester Housing Market Renewal area. We got their story into a number of publications, including this feature in Inside Housing. The result was that the developer offered to buy back their property – an offer they refused – although three years later a number of issues persist.
Gary and Jonathan are exactly the kind of people regeneration schemes like New East Manchester are meant to be about….bright professionals who have lived in East Manchester their whole lives and who bought into the vision of lovely, modern mixed tenure communities. The reality, as Gary explains in the clip above, hasn’t been quite so rosy.
Quoting from my orginal piece:
“We’ve had in excess of 300 faults. We’ve had two en-suite showers, two kitchens, six front doors and three lawns.
“All the rear windows had to be replaced, we’ve had problems with our patio doors and tiles replaced…”
He takes a deep breath and carries on: “All the properties were fitted with Whispergens – a combined heat and power system which keeps breaking down. We’re meant to be having them replaced, but they’ve been taken off the market.
“On top of this, the builders have breached their planning consent. Our house ended up around 60 sq ft bigger than it should have been, and we’ve been advised by the council’s planning department that a retrospective application is now needed.”
…….Cross is not a one-off. I met residents of more than 10 neighbouring properties, and all told a similar story.
“We’ve faced fault after fault,” says Alan Jones, who chose the development for its proximity to his beloved Manchester City FC.
“Twelve windows had to be replaced because they were scratched. Ceilings have been replastered because it was all falling off. The kitchen was put in wrong.
“Lead blew off the roof in the high winds and smashed our shed. The render was cracked and three internal doors have been replaced. Electric wires had not been screwed in properly. The list goes on.”
I’m not sure why I only just thought of doing this but I’ve created a stand-alone website to consolidate all my work on regeneration. I had no idea quite how much of it there was until it came to putting it all together. I’ll continue to post new work on this blog of course as well as popping it onto my Street Fighters site but this is an opportunity to get a lot of stuff not previously available online ‘out there’ in case anyone finds it useful. It will probably bore most people to tears, mind. Imagine how I feel.
