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I lost my home for nothing

Clarissa Satchell
21/ 7/2004

THE COLLAPSE of the "Big Bang" Metrolink expansion has hit 78-year-old Helen Jeeves more than most.

Her house was demolished to make way for a new tram station, even though she did not want to leave it and hung on until she was the last resident in her street to move out.

Miss Jeeves, whose old home was in Droylsden Road, Audenshaw, finally moved out last August after a compulsory purchase order was slapped on her house as part of the estimated '200 million of work already carried out on the project.

She said: "It was a lovely house, a good-sized semi of the sort you don't usually get these days. It was very roomy and I was very happy there. The neighbours all vanished one by one but I hung on right until the end.

"It was very upsetting to see it demolished, I had moved there 10 years earlier to look after my two aunts who were ill. So to me, this announcement is really shattering. All that fuss and upheaval and all for nothing.

Casualties

"I always thought it wouldn't happen but I think it's wrong that all those houses were knocked down and we all had to move out."

Miss Jeeves moved to another house in Audenshaw along with neighbours from 18 houses demolished on a triangle of land between Lumb Lane, Manchester Road and Droylsden Road, which the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive had bought for the proposed Audenshaw station.

But residents living near the now-derelict site are now waging a battle to stop the site being fenced off and used for large advertising displays.

Freelance designer Jackie Worsnop, who has lived in Manchester Road for 12 years with husband Ian, said: "We all thought that because the houses were being demolished, the Metrolink must be on the way soon. Some of the residents didn't really want to leave, they were nice houses, and we didn't think they would empty them unless it was definitely going to happen.

"When my mum bought her house five years ago the search told us there was going to be a beautiful grassed area with a tram stop. Now we're left with a derelict mess and they want to put up a big fence covered in posters. It will be an eyesore.

"We're the casualties of the whole mess and we now want to see the land landscaped as promised."

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