THE CHANGING FACE OF A LANDMARK HOUSING ESTATE

They might have been notorious and crumbling but the Billybanks apartment blocks were also people’s homes. A decade after plans to bulldoze the Penarth estate were put forward, Tom Houghton found there is still bitterness at the way it was handled

FOR years, Penarth’s Billybanks apartment blocks were left to crumble on their perch overlooking Cardiff’s troubled docklands.

What still rankles for many who lived in the once-pioneering ’60s housing scheme is that the authorities only seemed to take an interest when that view was transformed by Cardiff Bay barrage.

Like so many dense council estates, the years had not been kind to the Billybanks.

Unmaintained, vandalised and with many of the flats left derelict, an award-winning estate that had once been described as the “heart and soul” of its town was now more often described as an eyesore.

Yet the decision to bulldoze it, disperse the tenants around the Vale of Glamorgan and replace it with luxury houses and apartments still angers those who felt that care, maintenance and refurbishment could have given it a new lease of life.

Father-of-two Vilis Kuksa and his family were one of the first to move into the Billybanks in July 1968. He vividly remembers walking up High View Road for the first time.

“I was 13. I remember it being nice, new and modern - shiny.

“As I walked down the road I thought how lovely it was. My family were delighted. It was a friendly community and at the time, people used to stand outside and talk and meet up.”

Vilis is now 62. His father was a Latvian merchant seaman and mother worked at a Penarth shop.

He cannot remember exactly when the estate got a bad name, but he realised its reputation when going for a job interview years later.

“I told the interviewers, they looked at each other and said ‘oh, Alcatraz.’

“It’s what people used to refer to it as.”

The Vale of Glamorgan council

first proposed a regeneration of the site, which provided more than 300 homes for up to 1,000 people in 2002.

But it wasn’t until 2007 that the application for demolition went in and not until 2010 that the residents were evicted to make way for “luxury Art Deco flats” complete with “breathtaking” views.

Veronica Burt grew up in a home close to the Billybanks and still lives there. She said there was a feeling of community around the estate.

“There would be lots of things happening - including jazz bands practicing on the rec and street parties,” the 48-year-old said. But problems began in the 1980s. “The washing got nicked off the line occasionally, kids used to come into the back garden and trespass, or you would get up and find your wing mirror is gone,” she said.

The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was set up in April 1987 to regenerate the docklands as part of a UK Government plan to improve poor areas of cities.

Anthony Slaughter believes that the Billybanks were left to rot as a result.

The Penarth-based Green Party campaigner said: “The real driver of the Billybanks being demolished was Cardiff Bay.

“Once those plans were in place this area of Penarth became a prime piece of real estate. You can see the economic reason for it to be developed.

“It should have been an example of what we ought to be doing with council estates, only we have had this pattern of demolishing them to build luxury apartments.”

Anthony moved to the area in 2004 before plans to demolish the estate had been formalised.

He said: “Anyone who could have been evicted easily was evicted, and others were driven out by neglect - left to hang on until the very end.

He firmly believes the Billybanks could have been saved.

“These problems could have been fixed. The council allowed it to deteriorate.” At the time, many were angry. In 2008, four residents refused to move from their homes even after being ordered to leave.

One, a 40-year-old father of two, told the Echo: “My children, aged 10 and 14, are settled in Penarth and I don’t want to move out of the town.

“I have been offered £120,000. There is just no similar property in Penarth on sale at that kind of price.”

Max Wallis of Friends of the Earth Cymru campaigned with residents of the Billybanks.

He said: “The Billybanks was being used as a dumping ground or dump estate for unwanted and problem council tenants who had been refused other accommodation. The houses could have been renovated, they had the potential but they would never consider that - they wanted to demolish and sell the site off.”

He said people living on the estate were dispersed and made to move on to cheaper areas like Barry, Llantwit Major, St Athan and Dinas Powys.

“Friends were separated and communities split. That was very difficult for them. It was very unsatisfactory.”

The first five-bedroom show home opened in 2011 and the development, led by builders Crest Nicholson, has continued ever since. It’s due for full completion next year.

A spokesman for the Vale council said by the late 1990s the Billybanks had become “simply no longer fit for purpose”.

“Vale of Glamorgan Council made arrangements for all residents to be moved to other properties in the area,” the spokesman said.

“Although there were over 300 properties on the estate only around two thirds of these were occupied at the time. All residents, who wished to return to the redeveloped site were also offered a guarantee that they would be considered for the available social housing which was to be built at Penarth Heights.”

But what of the new development? Not all are convinced.

Veronica Burt said: “The land and the views and the area had such potential. I think they’ve just gone for ‘build as many houses as you possibly can and get as much money as you possibly can.’”