Boot Estate, Norris Green
This thread shows some photographs I've taken recently on the Boot estate. I'd heard about the situation there and had wanted to visit the estate for a while. What I saw shocked me, I honestly didn't know that people were living like this in Liverpool today.
Just to enlighten anybody who's not familiar with the area, the Boot estate in Norris Green was built in the 1920s and comprised around 2000 council houses. The majority of these properties were built of prefabricated reinforced concrete.
It wasn't long though until the houses started to develop structural problems, and in the end they were classed as 'defective dwellings'. A major programme of investment and modernisation started on the estate a decade ago; but that was as far as it got.
Many homes were demolished, but the project has never been seen through to completion. What we see now is people living between burnt out and partially demolished houses on an estate that is almost uninhabitable.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200928.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200929.jpg
I don't know the full story about the situation on the Boot estate (and I'm sure other members of the forum can add to this thread), but what I have seen there on the visits I've made over the last couple of weeks is very, very sad.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200913.jpg
The Boot estate is around 3 miles from Liverpool city centre; though it may as well be a million miles away from the modern, trendy apartments being built on the waterfront. It's an eerie, and in some ways, almost-forgotten area.
This is 21st century living in Liverpool...
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200911.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200915.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...-JAN200918.jpg
Stalisfield Ave/ Clanfield
I too have just seen the Norris Green pics ! Born & bred in Stalisfield from 1931-1957 , reminiscing with my older bro recently he commented that in general our neighbours were all good people with a communal spirit, not a bit like what has occurred recently with the moral decay that appears to have set in . Someone complained about dampness & ice on the inside of windows ! that was an improvement to the average slums that most of the original tenants came from & we were grateful for that & I for one bless the day my young parents left the city environs for what appeared to them as an outpost . Sadly as stated some builders cut corners but the original planners & desighners of the estate & the duplicate Dovecot/Huyton were men of vision & ability & should be immortalized . Ron