Sheffield's high-rise flats: when did the 'shame' begin?

[muddycoffee]

It is worth remembering that the high rise flats were only meant to be built for 20 years as a stopgap after the second world war. They were built quickly to replace housing lost in the war and to get people out of the remaining back to backs.

 

Mostly they did their job and after a time new proper houses had been built to move families on to across council houses and new estates out at mosborough and other outlying areas.

[jgharston]

When? When Ron Ironmonger told the then Chair of Housing Roy Hattersley "you shouldn't be building tower blocks, you should be building workers houses".

 

At least Roy had the integrity to later admit that Ron had been right.

[mop head]

I was born on hyde park ,we where the first ones in the flat and had our pic taken for the star news paper i lived their until i was 23(my parents are still on there ,well hyde park walk/terrace)i can truelly say i loved it everyone new everyone and there was always someone to play with,rain or shine you could play out without getting wet,yes sometimes the lifts broke down but was always mended within a few hours and if they couldnt be mended that fast they opened up the service lift,the lifts did also smell on occasions,They wasnt dear to heat as said above as the heating was in the rent (This is still the case)im in a group on facebook of all the people that lived on hyde park from opening to closing it for the student games in the 80s and not one person says anything bad about the place,yes it did have a reputation as did park hill and kelvin but this was made from the people that NEVER lived there.The boy that threw the telly of the flats that killed little lisa R.I.P didnt even live on there IT WAS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE

[mop head]

It is worth remembering that the high rise flats were only meant to be built for 20 years as a stopgap after the second world war. They were built quickly to replace housing lost in the war and to get people out of the remaining back to backs.

 

Mostly they did their job and after a time new proper houses had been built to move families on to across council houses and new estates out at mosborough and other outlying areas.

 

hyde park and park hill wasnt build quickly it took years wasnt finished till the early 60s when did war finish?was it neally 20 years before???dont think these were a stop gap do you?

[Jim Graham]

It's like any other estate a few rotten apples spoil it all. My Dad lives in Harold Lambert and everyone there is 55 or over so the attitude is more community based than a lot of blocks. I would swap with him tomorrow if I could.

Not that I don't love living on the Manor of course

 

 

The flats were built to house the people when the slums were cleared

 

 

 

 

The people who moved into the flats when they were first built could remember how bad things were and appreciated their new homes. Once those people were gone and the next generation moved in they didn't appreciate what they had got. Because it wasn't what they wanted for themselves they treated everyone and everything with no respect.

 

They bleat on about poverty endlessly in this city. Look at the video and see what poverty really is.

[muddycoffee]

hyde park and park hill wasnt build quickly it took years wasnt finished till the early 60s when did war finish?was it neally 20 years before???dont think these were a stop gap do you?

 

The only reason for this was because of the massive size of the project. I agree that Park Hill Flats were better quality than most, however the hyde park tower, demolished in the 1980s was terrible construction with many flaws.

[ghost rider]

in the early 60s when there was mass demolition, and the war not long finished, there was a need to build social housing, and to get rid of the slums and there were lots ot those i lived in the old pitsmoor through out the 50s and the squaler that some people in was diabolical. you would often see tarpalins thrown over roofs with bricks to keep it from blowing off, this was because the roofs keaked and the landlords back then refused to repair them as they knew they were coming down. most of these houses had no indoor heating apart from a coal fire which was expensive they had no indoor toilets and damp was rife cause the houses were so damp you could see it running down the wallswe as kids would go down to the railways then as it was still steam and coal would be on the side of the tracks if you found a signal box we went there with sacks bags owt that you could carry away the coal i'm sorry ive gone on a bit but lots of people today dont know what the state of housing was then so high rise was the cheapest option but these high rises were heaven to what they had lived in before thank for reading this but until you have lived through it you don't know how lucky we are now

I think you have said it perfectly ,what people had to live in and through in the first half of the last century ,me or anybody born in the late 60,s onwards can,t possibly imagine what it must have been like.The younger generation need someone like you to talk to them and explain why they should respect other people and other peoples property.My gran used to tell me they didnt even lock the front door safe in the knowledge that no one would break in.Even in the late 60,s my dad didnt bother locking his car,now he has an alarm,immobiliser,security lock.Depressing.

[phantom309]

The 13 storey flats on Wentworth Street were built in the 50s as I left school at Easter 1960 and the flats were my paper round.

My grand parents lived in a market town in Cambridgeshire and not only an outside toilet but the only water was from a well out side they had a bowl on a table to get washed in cold water out side and lived there until around 1960 and I was born there at their house during the war before my parents moved to Sheffield after the war.

[gnvqsos]

Systems building spread in the 1960s as architect and builders bribed(rewarded)local councillor to commission their erections.T Dan Smith was one of those imprisoned along with John Paulson.Several Tory MPs were implicated but (too) many evaded custody.

[dafodil]

Systems building spread in the 1960s as architect and builders bribed(rewarded)local councillor to commission their erections.T Dan Smith was one of those imprisoned along with John Paulson.Several Tory MPs were implicated but (too) many evaded custody.

I believe that most of the Sheffield projects in the fifties and sixties were built by the Public Works Dept .

My late husband was a site manager on a few of the jobs and he was very proud of the way that the city used its own labour and Architects.