Pathfinder demolitions

[Nemesis]

Local campaigners in Liverpool have heard today that their public inquiry has been lost - more bulldozing of homes.

Please sign the e-petition now launched (ignore the Jan 2008 deadline and sign asap):

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Stop-Pathfinder/#detail

 

[Schoolmarm]

SIGNED

 

[Nemesis]

Thankyou!

http://www.fightforourhomes.com

 

[Moo]

Signed.

 

[Penners]

Yup.

 

[Nemesis]

Thanks peeps.

I know that in Liverpool they are gutted.

There are other ways, but the bandwagon is now rolling, and once there are organisations and staff and funds committed to this it's very difficult to halt it.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1984517,00.html

Our home cost just 50p, now it's going for £145,000


Owners reap a windfall as inner city is regenerated

Lucy McDonald
Sunday January 7, 2007
The Observer


Houses that were sold seven years ago for 50 pence each in a desperate attempt to regenerate an area plagued by high unemployment, crime and antisocial behaviour are now being sold for up to £145,000 each.
The homes in North Benwell, a rundown area of Newcastle upon Tyne, have increased in value by about 29 million per cent compared with the national average of 162 per cent over the same time. When the houses were sold eight years ago by the city council there were more than 250 applicants for each one.


Mohammed Naeem, 41, was one of the lucky ones. The restaurant manager moved from a cramped flat to the spacious terraced home with his wife Yaqoob, 32, and their growing family.
He was initially warned off: 'My friends told me not to buy in Benwell - even for 50p. It had a terrible reputation, but we like it. Our neighbour's just sold his house for £145,000. But that doesn't shock me. I'm happy. I bought a house for 50p. Now look what it's worth.'

In 1999, while homeowners in most of the country revelled in record property prices, the market in Benwell had collapsed. Although it is just a mile from the affluence of Newcastle city centre, poverty and despair seeped out of every burnt-out car, broken window and boarded-up home.

Home ownership levels were low, unemployment high and most residents were living on benefits. Kerrie Clarke, a local estate agent, said: 'North Benwell used to be grim. It was all right by day, but by night it was a different story. Good people used to shut their front doors and hope for the best.

'Investment buyers snapped properties up for next to nothing. I remember one auction where a man bought three flats on his gold card.'

Today it is still more Coronation Street than Acacia Avenue, but Benwell's fortunes have improved. Crime and the number of empty homes have dropped by a third. There are hanging baskets, recycling boxes and even a communal compost heap. Drivers used to park in their backyards to protect cars from vandalism, but now the streets are lined with vehicles.

But according to the 2001 census this still ranks among the country's most deprived areas. Four in 10 of its adults have no qualifications and its population has fallen by 33 per cent in 20 years. More tangibly, the barbed wire on back gates, bursts of graffiti and local troublemakers indicate that its insalubrious past has not entirely departed.

Salik Uddin's family is the first of the original 50p owners to move. They have sold up for £145 000 and are leaving later this month. They are grateful for the chance to make their start on the housing ladder but glad to go.

'I can't wait to get out,' said Salik, 22, a waiter. 'We're moving to Middlesbrough, to an area that's really posh. Our new home is lovely - four bedrooms, a garden and a shed the size of a house. The streets are safe. I've never lived anywhere like it. Our house here was worth 50p. I can't believe what it costs now.'

The cheap houses are in Hampstead Road, a wide street flanked with red-brick terraces. Each buyer had to spend £12,000 on improvements and received a £26,000 grant for the work.

All of the 50p houses were originally two flats, but a condition of purchase was that they be converted into family homes. From the outside the Naeems' three-storey home looks like a normal terrace house, but inside it is startlingly roomy. There are seven bedrooms and a huge bathroom. The walls are cream, the floors wooden and the sofas L-shaped, all a far cry from the boarded-up shell they bought eight years ago.

Next door lives charity worker Sahina Begum, 30, with her husband and their three sons. She said: 'The area's changed. There's less racial crime and vandalism. No one used to want to live here, but now we get offers for our house all the time.'

Sir Jeremy Beecham, a local councillor of 40 years, said: 'It was a device to encourage interest in Benwell which suffered from a preponderance of poorly managed, rented accommodation. It was a slightly two-edged approach. On one hand it drew attention to the collapse of the area, but it also began a renewal.'


Left out of the boom


While most of Britain has experienced unprecedented property price rises, in a cluster of inner-city areas in the North and the Midlands the bottom has fallen out of the market. Long periods of economic decline have left houses standing empty.

To combat this the government put £500m into its Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder scheme. This targeted nine areas, among them Newcastle, Hull, South Yorkshire, Birmingham, Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire.

Sadly, English Partnerships, the regeneration agency behind the programme, says the days of picking up a home for the price of a can of Coke are over. The scheme - last used to sell 50 ex-council houses in Sheffield for half of their £40,000 value - was hailed as a success but is being phased out.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Signed up. When naming this scheme, I presume the powers that be were aware that the Pathfinders were the lead aircraft in a large bombing raid...

 

[Tom]

Signed

Jaqy

 

[biffvernon]

The Luftwaffe did some damage in Liverpool but nothing in comparison to the Corporation.

 

[Nemesis]

Yes, we did wonder if they named it after the first Pathfinders...

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org - the report is stiill avialable.

This one's currently empty and available anda Building at Risk:

http://www.level-two.co.uk/gallery.php?locname=royalins

Apparently there are problems with pigeon sh*t blocking up drains - on all floors... I have to delve further.

 

[Penners]

The Luftwaffe did some damage in Liverpool but nothing in comparison to the Corporation.

It was devilish cunning of those Luftwaffe johnnies to fly mosquitoes, to fool the anti-aircraft gunners.

 

[biffvernon]

Now let me explain, Mr P. The mosquito was used in the Pathfinder missions - it was not used by the Luftwaffe to bomb Liverpool.

 

[Penners]

Damn! I thought I'd solved one of the great mysteries of WWII.

Actually, Biff, I think you would have enjoyed building mozzies - their being made of wood and all.

 

[Maris]

Signed.

and sent on to everybody I know.

 

[thiambal]

signed

 

[alison]

Signed.

 

[stevew]

Signed

 

[Nemesis]

Thanks peeps!

 

[Matey Plumber]

Signed yesterday but couldn't log in to this forum to say so.

 

[skier-hughes]

Done