Tuesday 19 February 2008

Demolition

This is the beginning of the end for the the St Pauls area of Cheltenham. However, it is only temporary, as new houses are going to replace parts of the 1930's estate. The estate is on the West side of town, close to the centre, and for decades has had a bad reputation, as the area is rife with vandalism, drugs and crime, although it is only the minority that give the estate this reputation. Unfortunatly mud sticks. In April 2005 the Council decided to demolish all 312 house but after protests from residents this number was reduced to 72. The streets facing demolition are parts of Hudson and Manser Street and all of Crabtree Place, and at the end of January this year the work started to reduce them to rubble. Many residents will move back into the new development and some say that the problems faced in the past will return too. I tend to agree with them. The problem isn't necessarily the buildings themselves, but some of the people in them.

7 comments:

brian stout said...

Nice shots! that's a big pile of bricks! Demolition always looks bad, but i'm sure it will be amazing when they're done with it.

slim said...

The preservationist and recyclist in me says too bad they didn't rehab the buildings and rehab the people in the buildings so the bad patterns don't repeat themselves.

Neva said...

that's quite the demolition! The answer to
what is a subdivision? is --land that is divided up into parcels to be sold to build on. Our subdivision is an acre minimum, but many subdivisions are smaller. Hope that helps! We have about 50 homes in our subdivision.....only a little over 6200 people in our town.

Neva said...

BTW, I linked you on my blog...hope that is ok with you.

Pat said...

Marley, how interesting and how sad too. I imagine that lots of builders or renovators who want an "old look" to their homes would love to buy those old bricks!

I saw a new subdivision nearby where I live get demolished like this. I wish that they had modernized the homes instead of demolishing.


Pat

Guelph Daily Photo, My Photos.

FĂ©nix - Bostonscapes said...

I think I know how you feel about this. Here in town, the Boston Redevelopment Authority has done a lot of that and not always successfully. A good example: Scollay Square.

MJ said...

Isn't that a common dillema in most cities?

Taking away the bad doesn't really show the good.

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