Tenant payout in Oswestry estate demolition plan
Friday 9th September 2011, 12:43PM BST.
Tenants living on a drug-hit housing estate in Oswestry are to be given nearly £5,000 to move elsewhere if plans to demolish homes get the go-ahead.
Shropshire Council chiefs say residents will be entitled to the cash if councillors back plans next week to demolish 48 properties in Oswestry’s Swan Lane. However tenants said today they were worried it would not be enough to set them up in a new home.
Residents also expressed concerns about where they would be moved to.
Tenant Lydia Hayes said: “The money is better than nothing.
“And I would want to get out of this place, although I would like to take my friends with me.
“It has a bad reputation.”
Tenant Mark Davidson said: “I have been living here for 18 years and for 18 years I have been trying to get out.
“I want to get out and get out of Shropshire, because I am sick of the heroin.
“The money is okay but it will soon go.”
And resident Anthony Hughes added: “It has been bad around here with drugs but people are worried where they will be moved to. They don’t want to be shifted from one tip to another tip.”
The council plans to regenerate the area and knock down the housing because there is no demand for some of the properties and low demand for other homes.
A council report said despite ‘substantial resources’ being spent on the area, it still suffered from drug problems and some accommodation had remained empty for six months.
The report, which will go before cabinet on Wednesday, said: “Management has been problematic for many years with high turnover and a history of substance misuse associated with the site.
“Despite substantial resources focused by many agencies on the estate, it has not resolved the issues.”
The report said the council would have to make ‘home loss payments’ to the tenants if their homes were demolished.
It said: “We will move tenants as and when a suitable alternative home is available over the next two years.”
The report added: “All tenants are entitled to a home loss payment of £4,700 if they are moved as a result of the need for demolition.”
By Iain St John
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Well, taxpayers, there’s the answer when you ask the council at your next budget meeting where almost £1/4 million pounds of your cash went to – straight into the pockets of residents of a drug-blighted estate to enable them to move en-masse to another Shropshire community which, (if one assumes that “drug blighted” means “by the residents themselves” – who else could it be, by definition?), will also become drug-blighted, and so the carousel keeps on turning.
(Wonder who will benefit from the cleared land afterwards. Just a thought.)
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90% of the tenants are on Housing Benefits so we would presume they will still receive this wherever they move to. What do they think the £5000 approx is for – more drugs and booze ?.
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Surely the residents in the ‘Drug Blighted’ estate should accept some responsibility for what has apparently happend to their area. Those residents not involved in the sale, supply or the taking of the drugs should provide the local Police with the names and addresses of those involved. They should continue to insist to the Police that they do something, after all it is the responsibility of the Police to arrest those individuals involved. The local Police should liase directly with the local authority and between them they should clean up the area and nake it more pleasnt for those that live there.
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Why not get rid of the druggies, or the trouble tennants, spend the money they would recieve to do up the flats and area, then get better tenants in.
I bet the flats are in sound shape building wise, just need a revamp may be even remane the area.
It help with people wanting housing and some save taxpayers money.
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