The Poolie Bunker

Headlines in todays Mail,
Stumbling block, derelict hotel maybe sold again after housing plan setback.
It looks like the owners Acland Homes plans have been blocked, is there 24 hour security at the Staincliffe, there has been a few fires of recent at deflect buildings in the town.

somebody will get arsonists for hire in to get their own way in the end.

Shame that our hero couldn't have transformed it into a quality home for the elderly?

It's criminal what is happening to Hartlepool's historic buildings. Tunstall Court, the cinema, The Staincliffe, buildings around Church Street etc. I'm all for progress and nothing wrong with good quality modern buildings but new building are substandard, cheap and offer little to improve Hartlepool. The town has an incredible history and we need to build on what we've got, so that means celebrating the character of the town.
I can't see any way back for the Staincliffe now and this was completely avoidable.
Thank god the Grand and Wesley were rescued.

might be wrong but i always feel that towns who are thought of as tourist areas away from the old traditional blackpool type of places seem to keep there heritage more. anybody who goes to the away game at halifax should arrive early and have a look around the place and compare it to what hartlepool has to offer by combining the old with the new.

The Piece Hall in Halifax is amazing like.

there indoor market, the borough hall is even better without the rip off shops there to fleece the tourists. a few decent cheap cafes in there with good meals to see you through the match that sells coffee and not latte or other poncy italian names stuff and chips that they peel to get rid of the skins on them.

Full article in The Mail now says,
Stephen Litherland, managing director at Acland Homes, warned there has now "been a change in circumstance with one of the investors for the scheme.

Not surprised Jamie….businesses are going to be very wary about investing money given the financial situation……

I don’t believe any investor would want to put money into refurbishing the Staincliffe, it would cost a fortune to bring it up to modern day standards. The current owners see it as a get rich quick scheme, knock a few breeze block flats up and sell them.
If it can’t be saved knock it down and build a hotel, there aren’t that many modern quality hotels in Hartlepool.

thats typical of the thinking in this country thats been going on for over 60 years. if it needs modernisation then knock it down, build something worse, usually an eyesore , and claim how modern and up to date it looks to become a bigger eyesore than anybody ever saw previously.

Goes back to the 60s when planners decided it was a good idea to knock down established town centres and build concrete eyesores with a multi storey car park.
I can think of many places where I worked and holidayed where the traditional town centres and markets still exist, pleasure to walk round them.
It’s an idea the U.K. inherited from the Stares where everything is out of town shopping malls.

it was mainly an obsession with modernity after rationing ended in possibly every walk of life and planned obsolecance that started in the car industry where vehicles were either clapped out or rusted away in front of your eyes and eventually into everything you have in your house.

Top quality detached houses would sell well with the view. I have heard of plans for houses to be built all along from the staincliffe to newburn bridge.

I thought the hills along Coronation Drive was landfill...surely they can't build on there.

surely if they can build football grounds on them with thousands of people congegating in a small area then houses could be built.

A single row close to the road should be ok as the main tip was behind.

Are there not pipes sticking out the mountains of garbage to stop any gasses building up, I wouldn’t want a house where there is a possibility the gas could seep into the house. I would imagine vermin will have taken up residence in the piles of garbage as well.
The estate on the rhs into Warrior Drive was nicknamed the rat estate due to the number of rats coming from the tip.

That won't stop the builders flogging the properties but I take your point.

or on grounds that became bogs even in a light drizzle.

You are correct ….They can’t build there unless they remove all the land fill and replace the soil below that as the sidings housed stored pit props and were treated with creosote.
There was a huge fire there in the 50’s and troops were brought in from Catterick to move the wood and create firebreaks.

The gas does not seep out vertically from the soil…… my brother was working on that site when it was created and that boundary at the time was the footpath.