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FURIOUS RESIDENTS FEAR FOR HOMES
by Lee Peace FURIOUS residents are to carry out their own survey of householders on the Windhill Estate amid claims that Doncaster Council's original consultation exercise misled people into backing widespread demolition.
People living on the estate dispute the legitimacy of the council's survey in which questionnaires were sent to 362 properties, all earmarked for re-development, asking householders their opinion about the future of the estate.
Following the consultation, the council said most residents who responded were in favour of demolition and re-building homes rather than simply refurbishing them.
But since the details came to light, residents claim the majority of them would actually prefer the estate to be spruced up through refurbishment instead of widespread demolition.
The council has now been accused of "bullying" residents during the process and there are claims that residents had been misled as to the potential outcome for their estate.
The Windhill Tenants and Residents Association is to conduct its own door-to-door survey and is planning to present the findings to the council.
The move by the TARA was supported by residents at their monthly meeting last Thursday. About 100 people crammed into the Batia community centre and voted overwhelmingly in support of carrying out the independent survey.
Resident Margaret Cook, of Windhill Avenue, said about 150 questionnaires have so far been filled in and only six voted in favour of demolition.
She added: "It is difficult to catch people in but we are hoping to get a response from every household included within the plan to show a true reflection of people's opinions.
"We will present our findings to either to the cabinet at Doncaster Council or to Mayor Martin Winter."
And Mexborough's ward councillors - Edwin Simpson, Sue Phillips and Malcolm Jevons - are also surveying householders across the estate.
Coun Simpson said: "Once we have our own results we have been told we can compare them street by street with the results which the council originally gathered in their consultation.
"There are some issues with confidentiallity so we cannot compare them individually but we can compare how different streets voted in the council survey and ours."
The controversial proposal that has caused such outrage is the 38 million masterplan under the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder initiative - a government scheme to improve housing across the country.
In the council's consultation process residents were given a choice of three alternatives, with options A and B having an emphasis on refurbishing existing homes and partial demolition whereas option C involves extensive demolition of houses and re-building.
The council claims of the 362 households on the estate, 305 responded to questionnaires and 61 per cent of these voted in favour of Option C.
The masterplan boundary includes homes on Clayfield View, Pitt Street, 70-88 Cowper Road, Hirst Gate, Coniston Road, Windhill Crescent, Windhill Terrace and Windhill Avenue.
Doncaster Council's ruling cabinet agreed at a meeting in January to support the demolition option C, described as a "radical approach to renewal."
But only the first phase of work has been approved, and the council has promised more consultation before any more work starts.
Of the residents' survey, cabinet member Coun Chris Mills told the Times yesterday: "We would be interested to see what questions and methods are being employed by this survey. Our questionnaires were carried out face to face with individual households and residents were not pressured to give any particular answers. We stand by their results."
lee.peace@dearnetoday.co.ukby Chris Walker
ANGRY residents of Mexborough's Windhill Estate attended a meeting of Doncaster Council's watchdog committee to voice their disquiet over the controversial Pathfinder regeneration scheme, which could see more than 300 homes bulldozed.
Coun Edwin Simpson (Lib Dem), who represents the Mexborough ward, told a meeting of the council's Safer, Stronger and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny panel: "A lot of the feedback I've been getting is that a lot of residents didn't understand the officers meant total demolition and total rebuild and this has of course caused a lot of anger in the area. Our feedback was there was a lot of bullying in that process."
Windhill resident Margaret Cook said: "In a consultation meeting we went to we were told we would all move back to our own houses. The council has misled people, it's come back now you could be moved anywhere in the borough. It's a community they're breaking up here."
Fellow resident Jo Robinson added: "They're breaking up families. The majority of the people don't want demolition. We have done a survey and there's 88 per cent for refurbishment and five per cent for demolition. They're good, sound houses all they want is refurbishing. It isn't long since my daughter got a survey done on her house and it is structurally sound. I blame the council for the state the houses are in because Mexborough is a forgotten town."
Coun Cliff Hampson added that he was "quite appalled" that the 13 million scheme had set aside almost 1.3 million for administration costs.
However Pathfinder programme manager Sarah Watson dismissed the claims. She said: "I don't think that is overly high to deliver a 13 million scheme, ten per cent administration costs is fairly standard. I'm confident that the officers in my team wouldn't have deliberately misled people. I don't believe they would have bullied anybody to choose the option because it doesn't matter to the Pathfinder whether they went for it or not, we will just spend the money somewhere else.
"We won't move someone away from a demolition area to somewhere they don't want to go. It is entirely up to each household where they move. They will get a priority on the waiting list for any area of their choice. No one is going to be forced anywhere they don't want to go. We don't want to break up families."
Three weeks ago the cabinet agreed to the redevelopment of phase one of the Windhill estate after 74 per cent of residents on Pitt Street, Clayfield View and Windhill Avenue said they were in favour of it.
editorial@dearnetoday.co.uk
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