Our House

Moving on with the many things I wanted to blog about during the election campaign, I want to talk about housing. It's a significant issue in Salford. We have a multitude of different types of housing, from high-rise to bungalows and from tiny shoe-box studios to huge detached mansions. We also have a big social housing deficit with, at the last count, almost 20,000 people on the council waiting list. Yet at the same time, hundreds of potential homes are boarded up, lie empty for one reason or another, or have been demolished in the name of regeneration. However, rather than cover one of Salford's big issues, I want to spend some time considering the bricks and mortar itself.

Before the industrial revolution, this area, which is now part of the city of Salford, was a township known as Pendleton. It included a vast swathe of open space interspersed with a few large houses, such as Chaseley House (now flats). Buile Hill Park and Seedley Park at the top of our road were once much larger parklands and Salford was then a humble market town to the east. The industrial revolution brought railways. With the railways came the mills and with the mills came jobs. Jobs meant more people and people needed houses.

At one time, the most common type of housing in Salford was the two-up-two-down red-brick terrace. Indeed, much of Salford, including where I live, is still characterised by geometrically arranged streets marched on either side by rows of orange-brown buildings. These Victorian constructions - a then modern take on the Regency town-houses of the upper classes - are solidly built and have stood for a hundred years. They offer generous accommodation, even with the later additions of indoor plumbing, central heating and fitted kitchens. High ceilings and large windows make rooms feel big, bright and airy. But these wonderful homes are a bit of a dying breed. There are still plenty of them but far less than 10 years ago or 10 years before that. Perhaps it is the lack of outside space - terraced houses have enclosed yards but no gardens. They are houses designed and built to make maximum use of the available space. They are the high-rises of the past, built horizontally across an industrial landscape, instead of vertically into the sky. This is the landscape of LS Lowry.

The next round of housing at greatest evidence in this area is the product of the great depression of the 1930s. Faced with a massive recession as a result of the 1929 Wall Street Crash in America, the UK government pumped money into the economy by building millions of new homes. 30's homes are mostly semi-detached. Unlike their terraced brothers, they have outdoor space to spare. Gardens front and back show a developing aspirational society. Homes were not just places to eat and sleep in between work, they became the castles of the working class. However, like the housing of the past, they are homogeneous. In between the columns of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, you will find rows of cloned 1930s semis squatting in little patches of green.

There is a third housing presence in this part of the city that dominates in a different way to the rest. The 60s and 70s brought the replacement of so-called slum housing. Vast tracts of terraced housing were demolished, either during World War II as a result of The Blitz, or in the late 50s and early 60s in the name of modernisation. Replacing them were the great towering high-rises of the late 60s and early 70s, augmented with larger low-rise accommodation. The high-rises offered a vision of apartment living with all the amenities of modern life. The maximised accommodation in the minimum of space and created communities in the sky. In some parts of the country, and indeed, in some of the high-rises in this city, the slums of the past may have been cleared but the modernisation of the 60s turned out to be the slums of the future. I have been in many of the high-rises in this area and they are generally well-maintained and attractive places to live. Some places, like Thorn Court, are genuine communities. But not all 60s domiciles are so pleasant.

Certain parts of our area are made up of the 60s version of the Victorian terrace. Set at odd angles to each other and built in quadrangles or walks without vehicle access, these areas area difficult to police, so are favourite escape routes for criminals. Although they make good sound homes, they are often unattractive externally. On approach you are never quite sure whether it's the front of the house or the back you're looking at, giving them a somewhat schizophrenic appearance.

Nevertheless, Salford has some great housing stock and it's been great to get out and have a really good explore of my area. Like it or love it, leafletting is the best way to get to know the place you live in. The fingerprint of the city's history can be seen in it's housing and when you look back to the past you can see the same steps being taken and the same mistakes being made time and again. Regeneration and modernisation marches on and poorly maintained or poorly planned housing of yesterday is demolished to make way for the demands of today. Here in Langworthy, housing is coming full-circle. The lost terraces of the past have been replaced with modern equivalents to one degree or another. It's fascinating to look around and imagine the cityscape of the past and what might come along in the future.