Council meeting dramatically adjourned as protesters air concerns over loss of homes

A council meeting at Blackpool was dramatically adjourned when protesters against plans to demolish their homes interrupted proceedings to air their grievances.

Members of Blackpool Council’s planning committee attempted to explain that the two items on Tuesday night’s agenda were not related to the issues of the protest.

But the campaigners, who live in the Revoe area where homes are earmarked for demolition as part of a deeply controversial regeneration project, continued to speak out about their concerns over losing their homes and their community.

The committee was forced to leave the main chamber as some protesters shouted “cowards” as they exited.

The meeting went ahead in another room as the angry residents remained in the main chamber.

Resident Anna Penfold, one of the residents in the packed gallery, told the councillors before the meeting broke up: “We are residents living in Revoe. Imagine being in our position and losing your home.

“You say you want to build a community – you can put the money in but you don’t want to. You can fix these houses, not bulldoze them.”
Committee chairman, Cllr Peter Hunter, said: “I understand but it is not related to this committee meeting.

“You will have your time when it comes up.”

A council officer said the matter relating to their homes had not yet been processed for a committee date but once it had, they would be able to register their objections.

She added that there was a dedicated team at the council who would help them, but this was met with laughter from the gallery.

Another resident said some empty houses were already being boarded up, making the remaining residents feel they were being squeezed out.
The committee then formally agreed to adjourn the meeting and left the chamber.

Afterwards Anna Penfold  said: “We’ve had to do this tonight because they are not listening to us.

“We are literally going to lose our homes, everything we have built up and our community.

“They talk about new houses but are not interested in what we want.”

Jamie Rodney, of the Acorn Union, a community action group which works across the UK, said: “This is just the start, we will not stop. The residents do not want this.”

Blackpool Council is looking to bulldoze around 300 homes on several streets off Central Drive and replace them with modern housing, using a £90m grant previously awarded by former Conservative minister Michael Gove as part of the then government’s Homes England agenda.

The money will be primarily spent on the demolition and making the site safe.

The council says the proposed Central Housing Regeneration project will help eradicate poor housing in one of the town’s most deprived areas. 
But many residents are furious about the plans. They say they weren’t properly consulted and feel they are being forced out of their homes against their will. And there are concerns that there will be fewer new homes built than the ones demolished. 

There is uncertainty about where residents – including renters – will go, how home owners will be able to afford new homes with the compensation they receive, how it will effect schooling of children involved and even if it will effect some people’s benefits.

Cllr Julie Sloman, a member of the committee and an opposition Conservaive member, said afterwards: “I really feel for the residents and I raised this at full council earlier this month.

“I’m concerned that home owners who lose heir homes, many of them elderly, will not be able to afford new ones and will struggle to get a mortgage.

“Unfortunately, I think that, with all the new stringent regulations that have now come in and the work needed on some of these homes, it would be cheaper to demolish and re-build than renovate the houses.

“But many of these residents don’t want that.”