Threatened residents' last stand

By Mark McGregor
BBC News, Manchester

When Michael Mottram moved to Manchester in 2000, he arrived in an area of the city looking towards the 21st Century and the Commonwealth Games.

Regeneration was the buzzword as government cash poured in to east Manchester, with politicians talking enthusiastically about reviving its communities.

Mr Mottram was focusing on his own rescue project - a near-derelict Victorian house on Toxteth Street, tucked away off the main Ashton Old Road in Openshaw.

After moving in to refurbish the property, the 63-year-old, originally from Macclesfield, found a vibrant community among the traditional back-to-back terraces.

I couldn't believe that a developer could remove me from where I was living against my wishes and build a new property Michael Mottram

But within a year, it became clear that change was afoot.

After receiving flyers through his letterbox as part of a consultation on the regeneration of the neighbourhood, Mr Mottram went to a meeting between residents and the urban regeneration company, New East Manchester.

He soon discovered what the 21st Century vision of Openshaw could mean for his 19th Century home: Demolition.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. That there would be a rebuilding of the Toxteth Street area with new properties built," said Mr Mottram.

"I couldn't believe that a developer could remove me from where I was living against my wishes and build a new property."

New East Manchester aims to bulldoze about 550 homes - or 75% - of the area's terraces - to make way for modern two and three storey townhouses. It will use Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) to secure those that owners do not want to sell.

The area around Toxteth Street appears to be in decline

The scheme is part of the wider regeneration of the neighbourhood under the government's Pathfinder Housing Market Renewal scheme.

The brainchild of former Deputy Prime Minister, Pathfinder was launched in 2002 to revive the housing market in depressed areas of England, but attracted critics in the form of charities and community groups.

Other schemes are taking place in areas such as Newcastle, Hull, Sheffield and Blackburn. Some have been hailed a success but others, such as Liverpool's Edge Lane development, have attracted criticism and court action.

Last month even MPs joined the dissenting voices, with the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee claiming it had been more successful at demolishing properties than building new ones.

With offers of market value for their homes - currently thought to be between £40,000 and £60,000 - plus a relocation fee, east Manchester residents quickly began selling up.

A walk around Toxteth Street in 2008 reveals an area in decline. Row after row of boarded-up properties line the road and its offshoots; roughly one in six remain occupied.

The city council and New East Manchester would never promote a compulsory purchase order without having the groundswell of support from those residents Eddie Smith, New East Manchester

Almost 70 people have registered objections to the scheme. Now, ahead of a CPO inquiry in September, they have been offered some hope by charity, Save Britain's Heritage.

The body has commissioned architect Mark Hines to come up with designs to refurbish the existing houses as an alternative to what it has claimed is the "insanity" of demolition.

"Judged on community benefits, environmental impact and cost, rehabilitation and refurbishment is clearly the way forward," said secretary William Palin.

"There is something about terraced houses that make them a successful model for housing. They can accommodate different types of people and different types of lifestyles, and these particular terraces in east Manchester are full of character.

"They are the classic Coronation Street kind of terraces."

Whilst not disputing that many people find terraced housing attractive, New East Manchester says the area simply has too many to sustain a market.

'Low value'

It believes that by diversifying the type of housing available working families will be tempted back to the area and help reverse a 50-year decline that has seen the local population shrink from 160,000 to about 60,000.

Chief executive Eddie Smith told BBC News: "There is nothing wrong with terraced properties, except the sheer quantity of them and they are very, very low value. In the current market place these properties are not even getting their reserve prices at auction.

"They are the lowest value housing stock in the market place and we are replacing them with 430 family homes with gardens and driveways which is giving a different sort of offer."

But architect Mr Hines, who specialises in remodelling existing buildings, argues that terraces are part of the "DNA" of the UK's cities and are "adaptable and flexible".

Campaigners want developers to consider their designs Enlarge Image

He said: "They are incredibly tight but you can make them work. I think it just takes a little but of imagination to think about how we work with these houses to breathe some new life into them."

Even if plans for the modification of the existing two-up, two-down houses was accepted, the fact remains that much of the neighbourhood is now deserted.

"The area that I came to initially has now largely disappeared," admitted Mr Mottram, who blames council "propaganda" for convincing people to sell up.

"I think, that given the opportunity, the people who have been shifted out of the Toxteth Street area would come back - and that's what I hope.

"There is no possible way that I would live, ever, in a community that they are trying to construct out of a computer."

'Demolition is insane'

But Mr Smith says the proposals have been well-received. The policy of offering displaced residents shared equity schemes in new developments have also proved extremely successful, he added.

With criticism of Pathfinder growing, coupled with the credit crunch and problems in the housing market, Save Britain's Heritage retains hope that regeneration bosses may re-examine their plans.

"We started off really wanting to make a point that demolition is insane because on every level it doesn't make sense," said Mr Palin.

"But we've got a situation now where we feel that this is a viable alternative and, in fact, a preferable alternative."

"The beauty of these kind of designs is that there are many of these terraces, not just in Manchester but all over the country and with slight modifications these kind of refurbishment proposals can be applied to different areas."

An exhibition of Save's plan was taking place at the Strawberry Duck Pub on Crabtree Lane, Openshaw, on 29 August.