I’ll not be moved vows Sheila, 75, as bulldozers set to flatten estate
A PENSIONER who has lived in her home for 63 years is refusing to leave – as bulldozers prepare to demolish it.
Sheila Studden, 75, has vowed to be the last one standing after being handed an eviction notice.
A Compulsory Purchase Order has been approved and the homes around her are now being boarded up and put behind fencing.
It is one of five streets in Plymouth, Devon, to be bulldozed in the next phase of the area’s regeneration.
More than 100 homes will disappear before work begins.
But while housing association Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) has moved many of its residents to new-build accommodation and reached an agreement with most of the private homeowners, Sheila is ready to fight.
She said: “This is my land. PCH isn’t my landlord. I’m not going to give in that easily. I’ve already written to the Housing and Downing Street.
“I know people who have moved and are having to do repairs and redecorate their new homes. They’re losing out.
“People’s human rights have to be considered.
“I’m not going to get anything like the price I want for my house.”
PCH’s programme manager James Savage confirmed many of its tenants are moving from the North Prospect estate to newlybuilt homes nearby and it intends to build more new homes on the Minister site. He said Mrs Studden is a homeowner they are “very keen” to talk to about the future.
But Mrs Studden claims the money being offered as part of the compulsory purchase of her threebedroom home would not even buy her “one of the smallest houses” on offer from PCH.
She added: “I have to stand up for myself. I’ve been here for 63 years and this is a three generational home.
“It’s awful to have to uproot. And settling somewhere else would be very difficult at my age.”