The last remaining resident of a 'ghost town' housing estate in Wishaw has said he will 'have to be dragged' from his home if North Lanarkshire Council (NLC) want him to leave.
Lanarkshire Live revealed back in August that Nick Wisniewski was the only resident still living in flats earmarked for demolition in the Gowkthrapple estate. He now faces being forcibly removed from his ground-floor home in Stanhope Place as NLC has begun the process of appointing a contractor to demolish the properties.
Nick bought his home over six years ago under the now discontinued 'right to buy' scheme, thinking at the time that this would give him peace of mind that he wouldn’t have to worry about rent or mortgage payments in the future. The council have offered £35,000 for the flat, but Nick says it will cost him at least £80,000 to buy another flat and he can’t get a mortgage having retired last year.
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He told Lanarkshire Live : “I’ve heard nothing from the council at all since last November. It’s been a year since I spoke to them.
“I thought with all the publicity surrounding this, it would prompt them into doing something and come back to me, but not a thing.
"Not a word from them.
“That’s fair enough, but I’m going to sit in as I have nothing else to lose now. They might get a compulsory purchase order, but I don’t know how they’re going to get me out the house - they will need to drag me out.
"To me that would be assault, so we’ll see what happens.”
At a recent meeting of the local authority’s planning committee, councillors gave the green light to approve the start of the compulsory purchase order process for Nick’s flat.
A report that went before the committee stated that the council had made "every effort" to reach and agreement and would continue dialogue with the 66-year-old, which has left him somewhat perplexed.
Only three of over 400 homes earmarked for demolition in Gowkthrapple were privately owned, with the other two owners accepting offers from the local authority for their properties.
Nick had previously raised concerns about general maintenance in the area, but has noticed work being carried out in the area recently.
“They stopped cleaning the close a long time ago, yet started cleaning it again a few weeks ago,” he told us.
“They’ve replaced all the drains in the roads and re-tarred them all, which seems strange since they’re going to be demolishing them all.
"And they’ve changed the outside street lights. I went out and they were putting new ones in the lampposts.”
Nick has been left living in what resembles a ghost town.
With the exception of a number of elderly residents living in Allershaw Tower who are moving into new purpose-built bungalows as part of Phase 1 of their regeneration masterplan for the area, his home is the only other property still occupied on the estate – with metal security doors and shutters fitted to the windows of all the others.
A NLC spokesman told us: “We have been in dialogue with Mr Wisniewski for a number of years to try and reach agreement on the purchase of his property, and to find him suitable alternative accommodation as part of our wider regeneration plans for Gowkthrapple.
“The Gowkthrapple Regeneration Masterplan on this site includes the construction of 300 new homes, with the first phase of 97 new council homes for rent already underway.
“Every effort has been made to reach an agreement however, we have so far been unable to reach a settlement.
"A report was agreed by elected members at a recent planning committee to proceed with a compulsory purchase order (CPO) of the property in line with current planning legislation.
“We remain willing to try and agree a voluntary acquisition and discuss re-housing options with Mr Wisniewski as we proceed with preparations for the CPO process.”
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