Life now in the Seven Sisters tower blocks

It’s been an eight year battle.

Despite tenants fighting for years to stop their homes being demolished, the threat of the bulldozer still looms.

The Seven Sisters tower blocks are an iconic feature of Rochdale’s skyline. The estate, officially named College Bank, has remained a constant since the 1960s.

But in 2017, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), revealed plans to replace four of the high-rises.

They faced a backlash from residents, who spent years campaigning against the plans.

Although demolition was eventually ruled out in 2023, a shocking twist in the tale came last October when RBH put ‘all options back on the table’.

After coming out of an ‘exclusivity agreement’ with Legal and General, which looked into a cost-effective way to refurbish Mitchell Hey, Dunkirk Rise, Tentercroft and Town Mill Brow tower blocks, the social housing operator refused to rule out razing them to the ground.

It put campaigners from the ‘Save the Seven Sisters’ group right back to where they started. But almost a decade on, their numbers have dwindled – with some residents dying and many other moving out due to the uncertainty of their future.

RBH say they are ‘truly sorry’ for the uncertainty around the tower blocks.

Here, the Local Democracy Reporting Service looks back at the history of the campaign, and speaks to residents about the challenges they face.

How it all started

Ann Jones, 69, started the campaign with her partner and former town mayor Robin Parker. He died in 2023, but Ann has continued the fight they started together.

The 69-year-old Dunkirk Rise resident said: “When demolition was first proposed, RBH put out leaflets saying renew, refresh, repair – which I thought was about recycling. So I put that into the recycling bin.

“It was geared towards what they wanted to do. They had two workshops and the third one was the big reveal in June 2017 where they very kindly told us they wanted to demolish the big four.

“We were all raging, because it’s a very traumatic thing to be told that someone wants to demolish your home. We even got to the point where we received official demolition notices.

“We’ve carried on fighting ever since. It has been a rocky road because things have changed in the RBH leadership again and again as they said they need to look at their entire property portfolio.

“We’re not falling on our sword and sacrificing our estate. We want funding for this estate, now, to bring it up to scratch.

“It feels kind of the same now [as it did in 2017]. RBH said we’re not back to square one (when they made the announcement in October), but it did feel like we were. But in another way it’s not the same because in 2017 the estate was essentially full, and since then they managed to encourage people to move out.

“This is our lives now, we’re not going anywhere. We’re staying here, we’re determined.”

 

 

The toll the saga has taken

Meeting in the community room at the base of the Mitchell Hey building, the campaign group are just as passionate about their fight as they were when it all started in 2017. Chatting over a brew, they speak of the people they’ve lost along the way, and the toll this saga has taken on their lives.

Audrey Middlehurst, 89, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “One of our group, Meryl, used to pray in bed saying ‘please god, don’t let them demolish my home’ and cried and cried. She died a few years ago.

“You shouldn’t be having to think like that.”

Mark Slater, chair of the campaign group and Mardyke tower block resident, added: “She got up one night to look out the window because she’s had a nightmare her home had been demolished. That’s the sort of pressure this puts on people.

“It was really difficult when people left, because we lost a lot of friends who felt under so much pressure to get on with their lives. They felt that was the only way out.

“We had strong members of our campaign that left.”

With hundreds moving out the flats over the last decade, the tower blocks are now around two-thirds empty, the LDRS understands. The residents explained that there has been a ‘managed decline’ of the estate – with previous management at RBH doing the minimum required of them.

Despite the campaign group numbers being reduced, they do have the backing of the town hall and Rochdale MP Paul Waugh. The issue has been raised at a number of council meetings where politicians have voiced their support for ruling out demolition.

Mark Slater described the meetings like the ‘I am Spartacus’ scene, with many councillors standing up to share their connection with the iconic tower blocks.

The 73-year-old added: “If you talk to most people about the Seven Sisters, they will say ‘she used to love it my auntie, she was one of the first in back in 1968’. People have stories about them, they’re iconic.

“There should be no question about demolition.”

 

 

What life is like on the estate

There was a gloomy response from the tenants sitting in the Mitchell Hey community room when asked what it was like living in the Seven Sisters. Although passionate about the iconic tower blocks, life is not easy.

The vast number of empty properties means there is little residual heat from neighbouring flats – making flats very cold and extremely costly to heat.

Christina Hartley, who shares a flat with Roy Kitcher in Tentercroft, said: “There are too many voids. Everyone who lives in a flat here is cold.

“We’ve got fire heaters and it still costs a bomb. Me and Roy are spending around £98 a week just on heating two rooms.”

Even simple things like redecorating the flat are off the table for College Bank tenants. Due to the fear of getting an eviction notice at any moment, they simply don’t see the point in spending money on their home.

“You can’t do anything in the flat, you can’t decorate, you can’t buy new curtains or carpets because you don’t know when you get that order to get out,” 63-year-old Roy said. “The flats are decaying all the time.

“We’re looking at getting a new sofa, but do you buy one? Then if you move you’ve got to get rid of it. There is so much uncertainty.

“I looked at redoing the living room, but you just can’t get the enthusiasm. I went for new wallpaper but I just couldn’t be bothered when I was in there.

“You don’t want to spend the money then find out you have to move out and it’s wasted.”

Sitting across from Roy in the community room with a cup of tea in hand, Joan Wainwright chips in. “Your heart just isn’t in it (when it comes to decorating)”, she said.

“You miss people that have gone. You see people who’ve moved away who are looking ill because they never wanted to move.

“They seem to age beyond recognition.”

Underwood resident Sarah Brandon, 44, added: “It’s like your life is on hold.”

The group went on to tell stories of friends who’ve moved out and ended up homeless, in worse health or even dead.

Ben Clay, Tenants Union officer, said that people in the flats have been denied adaptations for additional needs on the basis that the flats could be knocked down. Even if they get permission for council funding, the chances of getting a wet room are ‘zilch’, Ben said.

Despite all the tough aspects of life in the tower blocks, that sense of community and fight remains. Roy is working hard alongside the new RBH management and the Money Matters team helping people with finances, and organising their benefits.

Roy is a regular point of contact for many tenants looking to get work done on their home quick due to his good relationship with the social housing landlord. The campaigners even described a ‘buzz’ in the community rooms in the evenings, as many of the tenants know one another due to the fight to keep the towers standing.

The impact of Awaab Ishak’s death

The death of toddler Awaab Ishak in 2020 thrust social housing conditions and RBH into the national spotlight. The two-year-old died after being exposed to hazardous mould in his flat.

Awaab didn’t live in College Bank, but the Freehold estate just up the road. RBH was criticised for its failure to deal with the conditions he and his family were living in, which eventually led to the sacking of chief executive Gareth Swarbrick at the time.

His death sparked the creation of Awaab’s Law, which is a piece of legislation that requires landlords to fix reported health hazards within specified timeframes. The national spotlight was on RBH, which meant the tenants in the Seven Sisters tower blocks could gain more publicity for their campaign.

Mark said: “It was a turning point for social housing nationally. Awaab’s Law has been brought in, which has huge implications across the country.

“Here, in Rochdale, it put the focus on RBH as an organisation and put a spotlight on them. They were running rampant with their responsibility as a social housing provider in Rochdale.

“Awaab’s tragic death became an example of how little the senior management had respect for the tenants in the community of Rochdale.”

It was following this, in 2023, that the campaign group had success in taking demolition off the table. But all that was thrown back into doubt yet again when the deal with Legal and General ended.

Hopes for the future

The campaign group are working hard to remove the threat of demolition. They want the flats renovated so more people move into them. Ultimately, they want to see the flats filled again – like they were a decade ago.

At the moment, over 20,000 people are on the housing waiting list in Rochdale. For years now, hundreds of the flats at College Bank have sat empty.

For the campaigners, the ‘common sense approach’ would be to get these flats sorted and filled as soon as possible. Mark Slater said this would save RBH money. They would no longer be paying to have empty homes. It would save the council shelling out cash on temporary accommodation.

The group have even worked with architects Unit 38 in London to look at ways to renovate the flats to become energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

Mark added: “We do have a community plan in place for the estate which includes traffic management, parking, as well as a section for quick wins. This includes things we believe this estate lost due to being subject to managed decline – essentially RBH did the minimum necessary.”

He went on to say that the signage, lobbies and other aesthetics across the estate have become tired and outdated. The group confessed that the new management at RBH have taken on board these quick wins and ‘got stuck in’.

The recent work from RBH is making it a more ‘acceptable place to live’, the residents agreed.

What Rochdale Boroughwide Housing says

According to the housing provider, going ahead with the College Bank regeneration could mean other tenants in RBH’s vast 12,000-home estate miss out on cash for repairs and maintenance work. In the wake of the Awaab Ishak death, RBH has needed to focus on bringing up the rest of their housing stock up to standard before embarking on any other major building schemes, they say.

The projected cost of the College Bank regeneration is currently unknown. RBH has previously estimated the cost of the project would be around £107m – but that figure could have increased with inflation.

It was publicly recognised that there is a funding gap it will need to meet but how big that financial hole is remains a mystery.

Amanda Newton, RBH chief executive, said: “We have 28,000 people living in our homes and it is critical that we make sound financial decisions that balance the money we have available in our homes across the whole of the Borough of Rochdale.

“We have advised our customers living in College Bank and our partners that we are undertaking detailed surveys to inform the options for College Bank. Until we have this information, all options must remain on the table to ensure that we arrive at a sustainable and affordable solution.

“The work that the Council is doing to determine long term housing needs and the types of homes required into the future will also need to be considered in determining the way forward. We are the largest housing provider in the Borough and work closely with the Council and wider partners to provide homes for those most in need of housing.

“We know that the uncertainty of recent years has been difficult for our customers living in College Bank and that they have been waiting for too long for a way forward to be confirmed, and for that we are truly sorry.

“RBH is now under new leadership and we are providing a range of tailored support and information for our customers. Our customers are the most important people involved in these plans, and we are staying in regular contact with all households living in College Bank.

“Those living in College Bank are always the first to be informed of any updates, and we are also working with them to deliver real improvements to the blocks in the short term while the longer-term proposals are developed.”

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter