Regeneration of a community
Now that we’re part way through, it’s easy to forget where we started. We’ve done two books of photography taken by Len Grant and stories documenting some of the trials and tribulations of the residents of the Cardroom estate.
It’s hard to say what happened... why it turned.
To purchase Len’s book; From the Ground Up, visit www.cornerhouse.org
The challenge the residents faced at first was pretty bleak – here’s one of the original quotes from one of Len’s interviews:
“There was a nice community spirit originally because all the people had lived near each other before, they weren’t all strangers.
Over that side of the estate they all moved from Pollard Street and all the people on this side came from Miles Platting.
So everyone knew each other.
Every house was nice.
People took a pride in it. Most came from council flats and now they had a house with a garden. They were dead excited. They wanted to do something with it.
There were all the little walkways between the houses and spaces where we had benches with shrubs and flowers. There was nowhere for the kids to play so we used to organise games for them... give them skipping ropes... take them up to the canal for a walk.
It’s hard to say what happened... why it turned.
But it did start turning and because of that all the families started moving out, so you had empty houses.
And then around that time the Council were doing up some of the maisonettes further round that way and so they moved all the people out into temporary accommodation which was mostly on this estate. They were only here for about three months so they didn’t care about their houses. They’d leave rubbish everywhere. So more people moved out, so more empty houses.
That’s when it went really bad...”
It’s good to talk
Community consultation is a by-word for everyone involved in regeneration, it’s even a planning requirement in these politically correct times that we live in, but making it a requirement doesn’t always make it happen or make it work as well as it could.
At New Islington we rolled our sleeves up and went out for a bit of a chat.
And, quelle surprise, the residents were a really nice group of people, they were bright, they had their own ideas and we listened to what they had to say, to what they wanted.
What they came back with wasn’t rocket science, it was common sense – they wanted the things that all ‘normal’ people wanted in all ‘normal’ neighbourhoods.
The residents were a really nice group of people, they were bright, they had their own ideas and we listened to what they had to say, to what they wanted.
- "My house"
- A garden front and back
- 2 storeys
- A pitched roof
- Safe parking
- A safer environment
- A greengrocer
- A baker
- A butcher
- A chippy
- An Indian takeaway
- A pub
- Personal security
- Property security
- A footie pitch
- Somewhere for the kids
Kevin, the son of one of the mothers we re-housed, said he wanted to make Ancoats Cider, so we built an orchard but made sure that Kevin was to be responsible for looking after it. After we planted the trees he fessed up to not knowing how to make cider, so we took him and his family up to the Lakes to speak to the cider experts. Now he’s a cider evangelist.
This strategy isn't just about homes, it's about jobs and opportunities for training and re-training to ensure that the economically active can find their way back into employment - in New Islington, in New East Manchester, within the City Centre and the surrounding area. The mix of uses - shops and offices is the foundation for new economic activity in the area, together with New East Manchester's wider ambition for this whole swathe of the City.
