Lord Summerisle
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2004
- Messages
- 866
Just thought I would give ‘ya’ll’ and update.
Some of you may remember me posting a while back that the council had put forward plans to demolish among other things our house… well thought I would pass on an update, and a bit of background.
Sort answer – our house is no longer under threat… we hope.
Long answer.
Background:
Back in 1996 a study was commissioned into ‘low demand housing’ in England. This was set against a back drop of a country coming out of a recession, the old industries gone, many people having to change jobs as the traditional work dried up – mines where closings, other manufacturing closing down… people where moving around the country to find new work.
Other things like the policies from the 80s like the ‘right to buy’ – where a tenant could buy the council owned house at a vastly reduced price ment the houses available for those in need had dropped dramatically – and a rise in Registered Social Landlords had sprung up in areas of cheap housing. These where landlords who received benefits from local government to provide cheap rented housing to those who received benefits (welfare for you guys I think – basically state handouts to live)
This meant the landlords charged the max that they could under the housing benefit payments. But still this wasn’t a lot of money. So most of these landlords concentrated in certain areas where there was cheap houses – and a lot available. Inner city areas especially – where Terraced housed abounded.
For those that don’t know – the English terrace makes up the majority of the English house. They where built by the mill owners 100-200 years ago to improve the living conditions of their workers, they are large yet compact homes – the stereotype is the 2 up 2 down terrace. – a terrace being a row of 4 or more houses in a street – all joined together. The 2 up 2 down meaning – there is 2 rooms on the ground floor – living room and kitchen, and 2 upstairs – 2 bedrooms. With the toilet at the time they where built, being in the back yard.
There were also the back to back houses – where each house had another house attached to it on 3 sides. Again generally they had 2 rooms downstairs and 2 upstairs and the toilets where at the end of the street.
Now over the last 50 years or so, most of these homes have been extended or internally altered to fit in a bathroom in some way…
Ok getting off my point…
In some areas of Manchester and Liverpool – the concentration of those receiving housing benefits increased… with many of these people being drug addicts, criminals and general down and outs – and these areas declined – house prices crashing… they couldn’t be given away – as no one wanted to move into the area – due to the high crime rates, and general unsafe nature. – people how owned their houses just left them.
In the area I now live in – the factories - shoe industries and cotton industries where closing down and production moved overseas – again people left to find work.
Yet since the mid 90s, the valley I live in was also gaining in population with the opening of new motorway links – that provided new transport links to the big cities around – bringing in the commuter attracted to the cheap housing in the area.
At the same time this renaissance was going on in 2000… the government was looking at the results of this research from 1996 decided that something needed to be done to revive the housing market. They set up ‘Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders’ across the north of England – Liverpool to Hull, Stoke on Trent to Newcastle upon Tyne – and identified 400,000 homes that they decided where in low demand, and that they must go.
What they failed to notice was that the market was already changing, and these homes where starting to sell again, and prices where rising. Rapidly. 40-60% rise per year for the last 5 years.
Yet in the areas the Pathfinders where targeting, prices were stagnating. Why? Simply plans where drawn up to clear these areas of the terraced housing – no matter what state they where in – evidence would be collated to show they where in ‘poor condition’ and ‘unfit for human habitation’ and the remaining owners forcibly removed via a compulsory purchase order. Their homes boarded up until the funding was given to pull them down, and the land cleared to be passed onto a developer.
Or at least that was the plan.
It gets very complicated now.
These processes started to happen 2-3 years ago, the bigger more powerful authorities would stop passing tenants onto to the Social landlords – leaving them with houses they hadn’t maintained, and no tenants to pay rent – so the landlords knowing these plans where in the pipeline simply boarded up their houses and waited for the houses to be the subject of CPO orders and get the big payments they brought – compensation, loss of revenue etc. and those few remaining owners where screwed… they can’t afford to move, since their homes are effectively worthless as they are earmarked for demolition, the councils wont pay much for the homes and what little they are offering doesn’t cover the cost of a similar housing in the next street that isn’t under threat of demolition – since the huge rise in house prices. And when they are turffed out when the house is compulsory purchased al they can do is present themselves to the council as involuntary homeless – and have the council put them up in a house with housing benefit paying the rent.
Now coming to the area I live in. The area was targeted under the Elevate pathfinder for East Lancashire – which identified 167,000 homes back in 1996. that where in need of demolition for what ever reason they could find. But this was all behind closed doors.
4 weeks ago plans or ‘ideas’ as they where officially called were presented to our town… which involved the clearance of around 700 homes – 90% terraced. But as no recent research had gone into the plans it included nearly 50 1930s semidetached homes, 650 terraced homes, several newly built homes, the area’s Ambulance Depot that’s just being built…
Now last couple of years Elevate paid for the renovation of 90 homes across from one clearance area – which was paraded as a ‘quick win’ – not much money spent, completed quickly. Yet what wasn’t mentioned was that to get the funding for the renovation, the council sold off one of their estates of council houses to Elevate to be demolished so that a housing developer could put up £150-350k ‘executive’ homes (in an area where the average price is £60-100k
Again our council has a reputation for being useless anyway... and has shown up in this exercise too… being at least 2 years behind the other councils in the pathfinder scheme. And with the amount of people complaining about this – the council started backtracking almost immidiatly saying is it wasn’t what the community wanted they wouldn’t go ahead, and those in senior positions saying they knew nowt about it.
Simply put from those involved in trying to help the council – who warned them of chasing after Elevate money – the council where simply naïve about the aims of Elevate.
Last Friday a meeting was held finally for the residents of my area – in an areas where 300 homes where due for demolition under the proposals – 400 people crowded themselves into the venue… at that meeting a straw pole was taken as to what people wanted – their homes demolishing and them having to find a new home (the claims of the planners being they would be given help finding a new home and a new mortgage etc. where met with desertion – many are retired, have paid off their mortgages years ago and don’t want to move. In our street alone there is a lady who is 101, and has lived in her house since she was born, and Jim who is 80, and has lived in our street since he was born, worked in the mill at the end of the road til he retired… both being offered help finding a mortgage for a new home! Or residential care)
Anyway the poll had 2 for demolition, and 398 against.
Myself and a representative from each of the streets had met earlier in the week to discuss questions that needed answering – pertinent questions.
And at the meeting it was all the planners could do to skirt round the questions… no answer to why these houses, what the criteria was for demolishing these houses.
And had a pledge signed by a senior council member to say that the council will not accept the proposals to demolish housing in Stacksteads
The residents had a simple message to impart. No to Demolition, No to Elevate.
Yes there are some things that may need to happen in the area… but mass clearance is not needed, nor do we want the block renovation that happened over the road – where each individual house lost its unique character – all being sandblasted, their gardens paved over whether they wanted it or not, their window frames on the ground floor painted a uniform gun metal grey… and in the end, those across the road are going for £5-10k LESS than the un-renovated houses!
Hopefully we have made Stacksteads Elevates last stand. That no houses will be demolished, shown how the data used is vastly out of date, that while the government scheme ground on through the layers of barocracy only government can create… the private individual and develeoper have transformed these areas, and we have stood and said NO. and given them a black eye for all those in other areas where such work it attempting to go ahead dispite objections from the local communities.
In another area, in another town the residents have been fighting to retain their homes for 3 years… have had 2 applications made for the demolition of their homes turned down, yet the council still try.. while being funded by Elevate for the demolition so the land can be passed onto a big developer at lots of money to the council, government and the developer gets prime land, cheap – to make a big profit – since what ever – he will have the price of his houses subsidised to tempt people to move in.
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