SPECIAL REPORT
ONE of Stockport's most notorious housing estates is to be bulldozed this summer, to make way for a high class business park.
Eight years after the last two residents moved out of the blighted Gorsey Bank estate in Cheadle Heath, the site is to be transformed into an area for offices and high-tech industry.
Property has also been bought up on Brinksway - by the North West Development Agency and the council - in order to create a landmark building at the entrance to the business park.
Regeneration manager John Fildes said: "We are hoping to create over 500 jobs at the business park which will hopefully have a beneficial impact on the local economy.
"We have already had expressions of interest in the area but we will not be considering applications until the summer, when we will officially start marketing the site."
Regeneration work will also improve the banks of the river Mersey along the site and space for a future Metro-link station will also be included in the plans.
The development will finally remove one of the borough's most scarred areas, which for decades brought misery to many of its former residents.
Plagued with vandalism, burglaries and arson attacks, the Gorsey Bank estate had a reputation so bad nobody wanted to move there.
And with a quarter of its 200 houses vacant and over half its remaining residents on the council housing transfer list, the local authority took the decision to completely clear the estate in the 1990s.
Sheila Bailey, who became a local councillor for the area in 1990, said: "There were many law-abiding citizens living on the Gorsey Bank estate but, as usual, it was a minority ruining it for the rest.
"A lot of money was spent on the estate in the 1970's in an attempt to change the culture but the area just deteriorated.
"Clearing the estate was a long process and a difficult period, but it did reduce anti-social behaviour in the area."
She added: "No one is particularly sorry to see the back of the Gorsey Bank estate."
Showing comments 1 to 6 and replies | View All
Michael Bike, Stockport (12/04/2006 at 14:35)
tony, heaton mersey (12/04/2006 at 19:21)
KATH, STOCKPORT (14/04/2006 at 23:30)
The travelling fair was recently held on fields opposite hyde park (hyde/dukinfield) & is apparently at daisy nook fields at the moment (tameside).
Andrew Smith, Canada (17/04/2006 at 05:11)
This should have been bulldozed earlier, the only face lift I saw to that place was new front door ways. however the council moved the tennants to locations of the same standard. you could flatten the ground and lay grass seed and that would be a great improvement.
billy matthews, brinksway (17/04/2006 at 19:13)
i am sure the people of stockport would love an old fashioned funfair without travelling to the ends of the earth.i fully agree with tony about having a 'reet' laugh on hollywood fair.its such a shame todays youngsters dont have a fair to go to.
by the way the fair was situated on football fields so exactly what has this voluntary group of do gooders actually achieved i cant envisage it being any better now than it was then.
Penny, Stockport (19/04/2006 at 11:48)
Maybe you'd like to get off your backside and go and have a look for yourself at what the 'do gooders' have achieved rather than bleating on a comments board!