Recession hits another waterway scheme

IT WAS billed as the flagship housing regeneration scheme, but Hanley's City Waterside like many others, has virtually stopped.

With many massive billboards depicting  a promised 'idyllic development built around stylish, modern canalside homes', the £275 millions scheme was to replace the existing terraced houses and dilapidated ceramics factories, Alan Tilbury relates.

Far from complete

But six years after Renew North Staffordshire began work it is still far from complete, even after the generous government influx of cash.

All there is to see at the moment, except the new unused miles of moorings on the Caldon Canal, are around 700 empty boarded-up houses, some partly demolished.

Continue funding

Though Stoke-on-Trent City Council has to save £33 millions over the next year it is still telling that  it is confident that it can persuade ministers to continue funding housing regeneration in the city!

But already the grand plan is being scaled down  to simple refurbishments, showing that there is little chance of further cash injection.

Many objections

There were many objections to the well built Victorian houses being cleared, with many believing that all they needed was a little work to give them years of life, but the residents were ousted, in favour of a 'vision' that has come to nought, with those same houses now either empty or demolished.

Yet in 2008, 240 such houses were refurbished at a cost of around £1 million, a fraction the £5.8 million needed just to buy and prepare the site of the £50 million Canal Quarter.