Resident concerns as huge housing and regeneration plans lodged

A huge regeneration project aimed at improving housing in Blackpool’s Revoe area took a major step forward today – but many residents are not welcoming it.

Some of them are so opposed to the plans that they have staged placard-waving protests to try and get it stopped.

This first stage of the wider Blackpool Central Housing Regeneration Area Framework is a hybrid development combining the demolition of up to 300 existing homes with the building of “ new neighbourhood” of 230 energy-efficient homes.

The scheme has received £90.4million of government funding, secured in March 2024 through Homes England, enabling the council to intervene at a scale that would not otherwise be possible.

Blackpool Council submitted the plans today, after a consultation period, with the application expected to go before the authority’s planning committee at some future point.

The project, earmarked for Central Drive and a number of streets off it, includes new shops, green spaces, community facilities and flexible workspaces.

With Revoe acknowledged as one of the most deprived areas in the country, Blackpool Council’s says the scheme is a golden opportunity to put right an area it says is blighted by poor housing and the problems associated with it,

But far from welcoming the project, there is a mixture of resentment and concern about it from a many of the residents who actually live there.

Many of them do not want their homes to be bulldozed and feel the council should use the funds to improve existing homes.

These residents, supported by members of community union group Acorn, have vowed to fight it.

Anna Penfold, 41, of Rydal Avenue, who is also a member of the community union, Acorn. She said: “I definitely do not want this. Me and my husband want to keep our home and we want to keep this community together.

“They’re talking as if all our homes are falling apart, but if you saw our house you’d see there was no damp and no need to knock it down.

“This is our own home, we are still paying off the mortgage but it is ours. They are throwing us out and the alternative is to go and live in one of those new toy boxes they want to build, which probably won’t last 20 years.

“The way this will work out, it will financially ruin us. With the £80,000 they are offering us, we will never be able to afford a like-for like house.

“We feel this is all wrong and that the council are doing this for their benefit and not for the people who are having to live it, the residents themselves. The council isn’t listening and doesn’t care.”

She added: “We all need some TLC and of course Revoe needs regeneration. We just don’t want it to be like this, forcing demolition on people who don’t want it, causing them stress and putting a strain on their mental health.”

As well as Acorn, the residents have also been supported by the Rev Matthew Lockwood, leader of the Beacon Church on Reads Avenue

He has helped organise meetings of community group Revoe Together and says that while the area does desperately need regeneration, many residents feel that knocking down homes is not the answer.

He previously stated: “I think a much better idea would have been to use the money to actually improve the homes that are there, rather than undertake a full scale demolition exercise. It feels like a mass dispersion of vulnerable people.”

If approved, demolition work would begin in phases, with new homes and public spaces delivered over several years.

Cllr Lynn Williams, Leader of Blackpool Council, said: “People have been telling us for decades that we need to do something about Central Drive and the surrounding area – and this is exactly what we plan to do.

“We have been given a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity to transform one of the areas most in need of regeneration in Blackpool.

“The area is the third most deprived in the country and doing nothing is not an option. Smaller schemes have been tried before and have failed – this area and the people who live here deserve something transformational.

“I completely understand that this is difficult for residents who are now looking to move but I want to reassure everybody that there is a full support team to help them find somewhere suitable to live and be compensated for the disruption.

“If that involves staying local, then we will try everything to make that happen.”