The rise and fall of city’s tower blocks
In the 1960s and 1970s blocks of flats were seen as the modern answer to the growing demand for council homes, following the clearance of the city’s slums. The concrete structures, however, became expensive to maintain and often miserable to live in and h
BASFORD: In 1962 in Basford, the city corporation cleared a swathe of properties stretching from Cowley Street to David Lane, and from Percy Street to Lincoln Street.
A new estate was built in 1968 in place of these homes, comprising four 20-storey blocks of flats, and others with three to eight storeys. In total, there were 822 homes. But the scheme only lasted for 17 years. The flats were demolished in 1985 and a new estate of traditional homes was built on the site.
■ HYSON GREEN: When the Hyson Green flats were built in 1965 they were seen as a new beginning after the clearance of so many old and sub-standard terraced properties.
They were constructed in five three-storey blocks, but by the 1980s their upkeep was costing the city a fortune.
The flats were also not without some problems. Rioters battled police and set cars alight at the flats in 1981 and there were also issues with blues parties. The 583 flats were eventually demolished in 1987. The city council sold the site to Asda for £3m.
■ LENTON ABBEY COURT, WILLOUGHBY COURT, NEWGATE COURT, LENTON COURT AND DIGBY COURT: These five 16-storey blocks made up the Lenton flats. They were built in 1967 but, in a familiar story, the blocks became increasingly expensive to maintain. They were knocked down in 2013 and replaced by 142 new homes.
Just before demolition, one resident of Lenton Court told the Post: “The flats were all one and two-bedroomed and they had big living rooms and quite big bedrooms.
“At first they had under-floor heating but eventually that was replaced by storage heaters. It was the worst thing they ever did.”
■ THE MEADOWS: The “Q blocks” were 146 properties built during the 1960s which were scattered across the New Meadows.
Made up of 15 low-rise, inward-facing blocks, they were located on roads including Blackstone Walk, Manifold Gardens, Middle Furlong Gardens, Saffron Gardens and Beardsley Gardens. They were demolished in 2016, and 45 houses plus nine bungalows built in their place.
■ RADFORD: A year before the five blocks of flats in Lenton were knocked down, three blocks in nearby Radford had suffered a similar fate.
Highcross Court, Highurst Court and Clifford Court were demolished in 2012. The council said it was more cost-effective to demolish the homes and build new ones.
The first of these, in Clifford Street, was decommissioned when Notts Fire and Rescue threatened to take legal action against Nottingham City Council unless it completed £200,000-worth of fire safety work.
The council avoided the action by agreeing to decommission the 15-storey block. It was Nottingham’s only scissor-style block – where the flats are on two floors but split over three, with one floor of a neighbour’s flat in between.
■ ST ANN’S: St Ann’s used to consist of hundreds of terraced homes and cobbled streets, before much of it demolished and rebuilt in the early 1970s. The work broke up tight-knit communities such as the one that once thrived around St Ann’s Well Road.
And some of the housing didn’t last long. In 2002 the decision was made to demolish blocks of flats in Marple Square and Chever- ton Court.
In 2007 more than 200 council houses were demolished in the overhaul of the Stonebridge Park area, including in Dennet Close, Limmen Close and Jersey Gardens.
And in 2013 low-rise flats at Locksley House and homes in Robin Hood Chase were knocked down.
■ STRELLEY: The Crosswall flats in Cranwell Road were demolished in 2014 as part of council plans to demolish 900 council houses across the city.
They were replaced by 25 family houses, 11 bungalows and 12 flats.
■ WOLLATON: When the contract was signed for the Balloon Woods flats in 1966, the council described the £2.25m coast as “one of our best ever deals”.
They probably weren’t thinking that 18 years later in June, 1984, when they were demolished.
The 23 six and seven-storey blocks on the corner of Wollaton Vale and Coventry Lane were given attractive names like Falmouth and Roseland.
But only 647 flats were completed before the authorities were forced to admit that the complex, designed by a consortium of local councils, had been an awful mistake.
The flats leaked and reinforcement corroded. Soon after the first tenants moved in, they were complaining of damp and mould. Paper peeled off the walls, electric sockets came loose and appliances couldn’t be used for fear of electrocution.
They were replaced with conventional homes.