Gateshead streets 'unfit for human habitation' and ready for demolition in the 1980s

Across Tyneside in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, swathes of worn-out Victorian-era back-to-back terraced housing were systematically torn down.

Built in large numbers from the middle of the 19th century onwards to house the region's rapidly growing industrial workforce, 100 years later these basic, functional properties were often no longer fit for purpose, with many deemed as slums and condemned to demolition. Our gritty video clip, courtesy of the North East Film Archive, takes us back to an area of Gateshead in the early 1980s where the crumbling housing stock was awaiting the imminent arrival of the bulldozers.

Taken from a film uncompromisingly titled Unfit For Human Habitation , it shows run-down streets of Tyneside flats where generations of folk had lived but were now set to be pulled down. The silent colour film was shot in the Old Durham Road area of the town between 1982 and 1984 by Stephen Gray who was Gateshead Council's Environmental Health Officer.

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Adjacent to the busy main road, we see an area of Gateshead that by then was a faded relic of past times - gloomy flats, boarded-up shops such as that of shoe repairer Edwin Macklow, and back lanes with decaying brickwork and roofs with missing tiles.

If you would like to watch more archive footage like this, but in DVD form, Newcastle On Film has been specially produced by NEFA. Presented and narrated by Pam Royle - latterly of ITV Tyne Tees News fame - it pays homage to life on Tyneside and features lots of wonderful archive film footage.

A clip from an early 1980s film showing sub-standard and derelict buildings in the Old Durham Road area of Gateshead (North East Film Archive)

The DVD Newcastle On Film is priced at £12 (including postage and packing), and all profits from the sale go back into the valuable work of the North East Film Archive. Buy it here. See more from the North East Film Archive at www.yfanefa.com

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