SAVE backs Residents Campaign

In the last few days SAVE Britain's Heritage have put their full resources behind the anti-demolition campaign in Saltwell and Bensham. Will Palin, SAVE Director, on a recent visit to Gateshead described the council proposals as a "national scandal".

Access to SAVE resources means that the campaign to stop demolition now has access to a heritage campaign that has been saving buildings from demolition for over 30 years.

Link
SAVE

Pathfinder bosses now want guidance on Demolition

After a number of years demolishing thousands of homes in the north the leaders of the 9 Pathfinder areas want to know if demolition is legal.

This rather vital question should have been perhaps before the non-democratic government agencies started their bulldozer blitzkrieg across the north.

According to Inside Housing the pathfinders are confused as to whether a home should be demolished or refurbished. Now they are to ask building professionals to help!

Mike Gahagan, chair of Transform South Yorkshire, said: 'There have been quite a lot of questions around whether houses should be demolished or refurbished. [At the moment] everybody does it their own way."

In Newcastle and Gateshead some 1,800 homes have been demolished. Now we know there was no rational basis for this policy and local Pathfinders were making it up as they went along.

So to all the families turned out of perfectly good property on Tyneside who asked why? We now have the answer - no one knows not even people implementing the policy. Just marvelous!


Link
Inside Housing

Demolition "scandalous" says SAVE Director

Will Palin, Director of SAVE Britain's Heritage, paid a visit on Saltwell and Bensham Residents Association today. Will joined our Secretary Nancy Bone on a tour of the area and had a chance to meet our campaign team.

SAVE has had a 30 year history as a national campaign fighting to keep Britain's historic built environment for future generations. A fight that has been made much more difficult by mass demolition in Pathfinder areas.

Two years ago the previous Director of SAVE labelled Saltwell and Bensham the least appropriate area for Pathfinder he had seen. Now that Armstrong Street has been demolished Will labelled the controversial demolition process as a "national scandal that should be exposed".

Will had been invited for lunch just a few yards from a street bulldozed by Gateshead Council. Resident Tish Brown explained that her home had only been saved from the council by action in the High Court.

The demolition has caused stress and anxiety in many homes threatened by Gateshead Council. During the afternoon campaigners pointed out the absurd nature of the demolition proposals taking out only one side of street of identical houses. Will was used to the absurd being the son of Monty Python's Michael Palin. On this occasion demolishing people's homes would make no-one laugh other than the millionaire property developers who were going to get the land for a song from Gateshead Council.


As SAVE is a national campaign Will brought along the SAVE report on effects of Pathfinder in other parts of the country. He discussed with members of the association his findings from a recent trip to Manchester.

Residents discussed the problems of safety and security living in an area abandoned by the local authority and the problems caused by blight. Everyone was concerned at the destruction of a growing community by top-down proposals based purely on financial considerations.


Links
SAVE Website
SAVE Pathfinder Report