We look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week back in 1985...
New Barnsley to be cut in half by new road
RESIDENTS of the New Barnsley area plan to hold a public meeting in the near future to discuss the pros and cons of a D.O.E plan to run a new road through the estate.
It is proposed by the D.O.E. that the new access road be constructed into the estate from the mountain lonnán, just below the new Barnsley Social Club. To do this two houses would have to be demolished, however, the Housing Executive is planning to build an extra 20 plus homes in the area.
In order to prevent joyriders or British Army vehicles from using the new access road as a 'run' from the lonnán to the Henry Taggart Barracks at the bottom of Moyard Parade, local people have welcomed a suggestion that the new road end in a cul de sac. This would mean that two new cul de sacs be created in New Barnsley. One cul de sac would be accessed from the new access road via New Barnsley Crescent and the other from New Barnsley Parade. The new cul-de-sac would end at the hairpin bend at New Barnsley Park. At present tenants are split on the new scheme with some welcoming the developments of the cu-de-sac and other cautioning against the cutting off of some streets.
Unity Flats – ‘crimnal neglect’
THE North Belfast Community Resource Centre in conjunction with the Unity Flats Tenants’ Association published this week a hard hitting report on the abysmal housing conditions which the tenants of Unity are forced to endure. The report also provides a detailed record of the Tenants’ Association campaign since 1983 to redress the spiral of decline in Unity caused by decades of what the Chairman of Unity Flats Tenants’ Association describes as a history of criminal neglect.
A spokesperson stated: "Since early 1983 in response to the rapid deterioration in their housing conditions and the consequent ill-effects on the health of the residents of Unity Flats, the local Unity Flats Tenants’ Association have been engaged in a long and hard campaign against the Housing Executive to secure what should be everyone's basic right. Namely and quite literally a roof over their heads combined with an adequate form of central heating. After almost three years of hard work by the Unity Flats Tenants’ Association, the Housing Executive and the D.O.E. remain as intransigent as ever. Unity Flats was developed in early 1960s replacing the old Carrick Hill and since its inception it has been regarded as a monument of incompetence and insensitivity and criminal neglect by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Department of the Environment. In 1983, the Housing Executive declared Unity Flats to be a priority estate, almost 20 years after the first block of marionettes were built. Yet, to date, August 1985 not one single improvement has been carried out in the complex. The Executive's excuse for not doing anything is that due to the debate on the controversial issue, they have not been able to proceed with their plans to refurbish the dwellings.”
The Chairman and Secretary of the U.F.T.A. added, "The housing authorities have the temerity, after long years of criminal neglect of Unity Flats in declaring the complex a ‘priority estate’ when in fact it is, and always has been, and will remain nothing less than a total disaster area, until the powers that be – whoever they are – tackle the problem once and for all and right a great wrong."
READ ALL BOUT IT: There was a campaign in Lenadoon back in 1985 aimed at encouraging local people to use Suffolk Library
Do we need to build on every green space?
THERE can be no doubt that houses are badly needed in the West Belfast area. But one must wonder if it is wise to build on every piece of open space to provide them.
At the moment the whole thrust of housing policy is aimed at packing as many houses as possible into every crack and cranny of an already densely populated area and we wonder if the services are adequate to cater for them. Already the sewerage works at Kennedy Way is being almost doubled and by the rate the houses are going up, it will be needed. The latest piece of land to fall victim of this Houses Famine is at the Lake Glen, opposite Curley's. This is the last extensive piece of ground left in the lower Andersonstown area and is being attacked on three sides by planning applications which will eventually lead to a couple of hundred more houses in the area.
This will be welcome news to all those unfortunate people who are homeless or living in substandard housing and if we had to make a choice between pleasant environment and more houses for homeless people, then for us, the people would always come first.
Nevertheless, is it right that we are forced to make that choice? Is it right that the people of Andersonstown be deprived of every little breathing space in their area just because a gutless government has allowed the bigoted Lisburn Council to prevent the further expansion of the Poleglass Housing Estate? Is it right that the West Belfast area be reduced to a concrete jungle, while the government sticks rigidly to the Matthew Stop Line which is preventing expansion out by the Hannahstown Colinglen Way which would seem to be a natural hinterland for the Andersonstown area and which would allow for housing at the proper density and with fully planned facilities.
The homeless people of West Belfast deserve at least this much and it is about time that we all started to agitate for it.
