I hate to say it but this is what you get when you build a fairly expensive housing development in the middle of a squalid council estate.

I know Blueberry Avenue and it consists of some expensive apartments but you have to drive through a rough and squalid estate called the Mill Estate. This estate is deprived and although I am sure there are some nice decent people living on it, there are also many undesirables, criminals and drug addicts too. They see people driving their expensive cars through it to get to their private apartments and they want some of it for themselves. So they take it, by force if necessary. This is no excuse but it shows why Labour's idea of mixed estates consisting of council owned, rented and private properties will never work. What a terrible ordeal this couple went through and I don't expect they will continue living on Blueberry Avenue for much longer.

Ms D: I know it too. I have always thought that there are two tribes. The criminal tribe, idle, dishonest and constantly praying on the other tribe. The Nice tribe, honest, hardworking and socially responsible. These developments sadly create an unnatural interface. Fool to anyone who buys a house there.

Catcher - They are struggling to sell them now so I think they are renting some of them. It's because prospective buyers have to look at what they are driving through to get to their apartment and at night, I wouldn't dare even venture out. I wouldn't buy one of these new properties if they reduced them by 50%. I said to my husband something like this would happen when the developers were building them and now it has. I would bet the attackers don't live that far away to see this vehicle driving in and out every day.

The Catcher, In the Rye*
Once again im in full agreement with you but what winds me up is the fact that the good tribe are usually the bleeding heart liberal type who actually stick up for the garbage? totally gobsmaked at the concept of people who get hammered when they get robbed actually dont want the birch or the death sentence back???weird.Its usually the lower working class who want it back,because its us who have to live with this scum.

Mrs D - whiilst I don't know the specifics of this development and the estate next to it surely you are not suggesting some form of segregation (even apartheid) between private and social housing? Mixed tenure areas do need to be carefully planned and maybe this is one area that isn't but is it worth giving up on trying to better integrate elements of our society over incidents like this? And anyway this sort of thing happens in many areas whether you live cheek by jowel by a large estate or not.

Craig: Yes! That's exactly what I would like - a nice gated estate where they have to explain where they are going and why.

My fellow contributor, Mrs D, clearly also has to put up with the burned out shell of the Broadway Hotel as well.

Not sure where you live craig but I bet it's nicer than the Mill and Miners estates - and surrounding environs.

This will happen to every owner of a Focus ST2. I know it's and ST because the BBC says it was Orange.

Craig,
Please do not turn my comments around into meaning something I clearly did not say. Of course I am not suggesting apartheid. Like Catcher, I live in the area (New Moston in fact) so I do feel qualified to make the comments I did. The Mill and the Miners Estates are rough - high crime, drug use etc so whoever had the barmy idea of putting a development of apartments in the centre of it want their heads testing. This particular development is right in the middle of the Mill Estate in the place where a large mill was demolished. There's one way in and one way out and this shows you simply can't throw up any development anywhere a piece of land becomes vacant. Yes, there needs to be a lot of carfeul planning in such developments and that hasn't happened here. Simply put, it doesn't work when affluent people are living right next to the poorest members of society. It's a boiling pot, waiting to explode and it did do here. There would be resentment. I said it wouldn't be long and I was right. I will watch with interest now to see how many of those apartments are vacated pretty quickly. Yes, there is petty crime everywhere but sledgehammer attacks are serious and not an everyday occurrence. I can only suggest you take a drive down the Mill Estate onto Bluberry Avenue one evening and I would defy you to disagree with me.

Royle Family/Shameless territory - so no more!

Craig,

I would also like to ask you the following question and imagine this scenario:-
You move onto a new mixed estate, you work hard to provide for your family and every weekend, you wash the car, mow the lawn and take pride in your home. You happen to live next door to a family with 6 kids, they make a racket, the grass is overgrown, there is rubbish in the garden, along with a giant trampoline and bits of fencing hanging off. Would you like to live in that environment ? Would you choose to ? Of course I am not saying all council estates are like this but let's face it, there are residents who do have to live next door to someone like I have just mentioned and I feel sorry for them because they are powerless to do anything to get out of it. I do have that choice so that is why I wouldn't buy a Blueberry Avenue apartment or any other in the same situation. It's not snobbery, it's realism. I don't think it's workable.

Ms D, Manchester
The idea behind this goes back years "A MANCHESTER COUNCIL IDEA" BLEEDING HEART SOCIALIST" put a bad family next to good family .good family values rub off on bad family? thats dreaming the reality of it goes like this. Bad family move next door to good family ,bad family wreck the peace and quiet of the good family the good family get threatened by the bad family ,the good family move then another bad family is put into the good families house. eventually you end up with a full estate of garbage.

ace - I used the case of the family of 8 in my earlier post because it happened to us. We bought our first house which was an ex council one 12 years ago in the same area where I live now. The house was lovely and so were most of the neighbours. Then that particular family moved in next to me. The noise and trouble they caused was terrible and we were trying to bring up a 4 year old at the time. We took pride in our house but they left theirs to rack and ruin because they weren't paying for it - housing benefit was. There were late night parties and they were jumping on a trampoline in the garden and shrieking at 3.00am and the son was arrested for dealing drugs. The whole house was an eyesore. The only option for us was to get out because I didn't want my son growing up in that environment. We took on a much bigger mortgage and moved away to a lovely avenue with neighbours who care about eachother and take pride in their homes. In my experience, mixed estates will never work when people are living side by side with some paying for their homes and others are not. There are a lot of attitudes that say "when it's not yours, why should you care ?"

I was brought up on the "Mill Estate" in the 70's and early 80's and it was a great place to live. Then slowly, the council moved in the "undesirables" and turned it into what it is now. I still have many friends living there, stuck because they chose to buy their houses from the council and now they can't even give them away. Whats the answer? I don't know. But something needs to be done to take back our council estates from these lowlifes and turn them back into the family homes they were meant to be.

I havnt a clue where blueberry avenue apartments are, but isnt this strange - 21 year old, obviously mortgage, Audi and a ford focus, what does he do for a living. Please let me know I need a new job. Aside from that, nobody deserves to be threatened in their own home, home is where you are supposed to feel safe.

Mrs D you clearly know much more about this area than I do and as you can appreciate I was making a general point. I would not want us move wholesale to a gated community where those who can afford to choose never to mix with lower income groups - I think this is unhealthy.

Of course if you are living next to a 'family from hell' and you have the option most people would move out. This is what has happened on a lot of estates whereby one or two bad families move in and the whole nature of the place changes. Those who can move out do and those left behind feel eve more desperate and 'under attack'. I've had my fair share of living in 'rough' areas including being physically attacked for for merely being lucky enough to live next door to the estate drug dealer so please, Ace and others, no assumptions about people that post on here

Thanks for your comments Mrs Smith - you know the Mill Estate and remember it when it was a nice estate to live on. It isn't now is it ? I feel sorry for your friends who bought their homes and you are right - they are worthless now because of many of the people who have since moved in. I'm glad I wasn't verbally attacked for perceived snobbery. I am certainly no snob as I live close by myself. My comments were about mixed estates. I think the Goverment should heed the warnings of the decent people that currently live in such estates because if they don't, I see crimes like this increasing ten fold. As in the Mill Estate, all the grredy developers care about is making money. They built these apartments in the very centre of this estate, made their money and cleared off, not caring about how the mix of people would work or not as the case may be. I don't recall any consultation by Manchester City Council either and there should have been. It's all about big business and profits with no thought for residents.

If the councils and the housing associations actually kept to their housing contracts things would not get out of control.i live in a ""Mosscare housing association bungalow"" and some of their property locally is a bomb site gardens overgrown gates missing and fencing smashed these are new homes .WHAT HAPPENED TO MOSSCARE INSPECTING THESE HOUSES EVERY WEEK .We have housing officers on the estate who are suppossed to walk the estate .i only have to walk two streets away from mosscares office to see the mess some tennants have made of brand new houses.but mosscare do nothing about it...