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Thursday, 28th June 2007

All change in Hattersley

PROSPECTS: Carol Ainscow
PROSPECTS: Carol Ainscow
HATTERSLEY has long had an image problem.
 
A rambling estate of poorly designed social housing, it was the overspill dumping ground of Manchester, home of the Moors murderers with poor facilities and high crime.
 
A handful of tenants bravely bought their homes but the area has remained immune to the property boom – you can still get a three-bed semi here for £95,000, or £65,000 if you don’t mind boards at the window and a total renovation project.
 
All this does not deter developer Carol Ainscow, boss of the urban redesign company Artisan. She has teamed up with Barratt to form BASE and together they are taking on the multi-million pound transformation of the area building new homes for sale, and working with others to build a new district centre and improve the station and other transport links. If anyone can do it Ainscow can – she is the one who first made Ancoats sexy – and on a walk round the estate is typically positive and honest.
 
She said: “When I first came up here for a look I was expecting to find the wild west and for it to be very grim and bleak but it is not like that at all.

Green

“Most of the houses and gardens are very well cared for, it is incredibly green with lots of open space and it feels comfortable. I have been on estates that are far more run-down, depressing and intimidating than Hattersley.”

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The challenge now is to turn it from estate into village and detailed plans will go in next week for the first phase of new housing to be built on a cleared site just off Mottram Road.
 
There will be 150 new houses, from one beds to four beds and 21 apartments and for the first time ever, all will be for private out-right sale.
 
So does she think she can tempt 150 new buyers to take a stake in the new Hattersley?
 
“Why not? If you forget what you think you know and actually look what it has to offer you will see the benefits of the area,” she said. “It has a good modern primary school, is surrounded by beautiful countryside and villages like Gee Cross and Longdendale where property prices are very high, it is right on the motorway network and has a direct rail link to Manchester which takes 25 minutes.

“For anyone who wants to live on the edge of the countryside but be within half an hour of the city, it is the perfect location so why shouldn’t young professionals chose to make their home here?”
 
Key to bringing in this new blood will be a new access road.

But much more than new housing is needed here and villages have high streets of local shops selling local fresh produce, not grim grey concrete squares of dismal shops.

A new district centre with big new supermarket is planned for a main road site just on the motorway roundabout opposite the busy McDonalds but that’s a long slog uphill if you are pushing a pram and will negate the chance of any smaller local shops surviving.

Prospects
 
Its also hard getting around the estate itself without a car just because of the sheer distances and the aim is to create mini ‘hubs’ but also try and bring the station, currently a neglected no-go area at the bottom of the estate, back into better use. Ainscow said: We want to see new employment prospects, a new road to drive more traffic to the station and new shops like a newsagent or florist there for local trade so it could be a bustling part of the area.
 
“What also surprised me here is the sense of community that already exists. People who live here want to stay they just want things to improve and to have more choice.”
 
The first phase of new housing is just the beginning and BASE have 27 sites dotted right across the estate, some big some small that will gradually chance the tenure and feel of
Hattersley. Alongside them Contour Housing is spending £25m to improve the existing housing stock so every inch of this place will get a makeover.
 
This is boxing champion Ricky Hatton’s stomping ground and the New Inn pub still his local, so he is as keen as anyone to see investment in the place. When New Charter Housing named a £1m block Hatton Court in his honour, he said: “It’s great, because Hattersley is home for me and it’s fantastic because this is the place and the people that I feel most comfortable with.”

The hope for Hattersley now is that new building can start this autumn with the first new homes completed next year and the new district centre by 2010.