About

We are residents of College Bank and Lower Falinge estates and we have been living with the constant threat of losing our homes at the hands of local landlord, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), for several years.

We do not want to lose our homes, we do not want to lose our communities, we do not want to be displaced.

We’ve been campaigning against the RBH plan to demolish our homes and destroy our communities since 2017.

Our campaign has three simple demands for RBH: 

• Stop the demolition programme with immediate effect.
• Work with Rochdale Borough Council to build new social rented homes on existing vacant sites.
• Invest sensibly and sensitively over the long term in our existing homes and environment.

College Bank estate—the seven majestic towers that grace Rochdale’s skyline—was constructed first, the towers easily became an iconic image of the town, known as the Seven Sisters. Lower Falinge estate—accessible four storey low-rise homes peppered with plenty of open green spaces—was constructed a little later, their striking design has always been impossible to ignore.

Both estates have a special place in Rochdale’s proud council housing history. They brought over 1,300 modern, secure, and low-cost council homes to Rochdale where once there existed only slums.

An undoubted improvement on what was present before, each of the Seven Sisters included such luxuries as underfloor electric heating in every room, and in Lower Falinge the spacious room sizes and ample green space both added their own touch of luxury.

At the Seven Sisters, those folks heading skyward would be transported there by one of the two lifts in each tower, while at Lower Falinge, numerous ramps and stairways served as entry points for the decks, which were connected with walkways and bridges that ran unbroken from one end of the estate to the other.

The estates appear to be poles apart when viewed individually, but when looked at as a whole, it’s clear their designs were meant to complement each other too. Both estates were designed to serve the needs of people in Rochdale, and between them, they offer a remarkably varied and versatile selection of homes.

The estates have been serving the needs of people in Rochdale well for the last sixty years; with proper management, there is no reason why these homes cannot serve those needs for another sixty years.

We have so many different people here, from, as they say, all walks of life, yet we are united by one common factor—we all call the same place home.

We have families with older children; families with younger children; families without children; people fleeing war and persecution; people seeking safety from domestic abuse; young LGBTQIA+ individuals; BAME individuals; disabled people; people who were homeless; carers and the people they care for; key workers.

We have an older generation of residents too, who enjoy being close to the town centre and the company provided by the design of the homes and estates—you don’t have to cross a road to find a friend, if you find you need some company, there’s some to be found right outside your own door.

Many residents of the Seven Sisters have commented that their communities are “streets in the sky“. It’s clear if you speak to residents that the lack of traditional roads and houses on the estate doesn’t mean that community connections are absent; they’re just a slightly different shape.

A feature of Lower Falinge is also the absence of roads; with landscaped green spaces and paths instead it’s peaceful and safe, and a place where community thrives, again, without traditional roads and houses.

From the outside it’s easy to miss these details, easy to miss the connections. Different people thrive in different environments; the same is true for communities.

We are already a real mix of people; we are already real mixed communities.

RBH were charged with looking after around 13,000 homes (repairs, communal area upkeep, rent collection etc), renting homes out via the Rochdale Home Choice system, and even the homelessness service across Rochdale Borough.

This resulted in RBH owning the vast majority of social housing in Rochdale, including most of the homes at the Seven Sisters and Lower Falinge.

RBH is classed as a charitable community benefit society and is a registered provider of social housing. RBH is also a ‘mutual’, but in reality we’ve found that seems to mean very little in terms of tenants and employees having any kind of power to change things in the organisation.

RBH is supposed to be a pioneering, different way of doing things, but from what we can see RBH is going to behave in the same way as other housing organisations and councils that have ‘regenerated’ estates—using demolition and displacement to erase us.

In June 2017 RBH announced that they had chosen to demolish four of the Seven Sisters, and sixteen of the twenty-five blocks on Lower Falinge.

RBH intend to remodel the remaining three Sisters—this means that no-one currently living there will be able to return to their home because it won’t exist after remodelling—and to refurbish the remaining nine Lower Falinge blocks.

In 2018 RBH gained planning permission to demolish the first five blocks of homes in Lower Falinge and redevelop the site. RBH duly demolished these homes, completing this shortly before the 2019 Christmas break.

In May 2020 RBH announced that they had secured funding to begin redevelopment of the Lower Falinge site; we think that demolishing homes without having redevelopment funding in place is quite irresponsible of a supposed mutual organisation.

It’s also worth noting that RBH intend to build just 55 homes in place of the 103 homes demolished at Lower Falinge, and that the four Seven Sisters—several hundred homes—would be replaced with only 120 homes.

If this pattern is any indication of the number of new homes being built on the estate footprints as replacements, there is going to be a considerable loss of homes across both estates.

If RBH succeeds, Rochdale will suffer a heavy loss.