Council and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing to review town centre demolition plans

College Bank Flats

A collaborative review on the investment requirements on the College Bank flats will be held by Rochdale Borough Council and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH).

Senior councillors and members of RBH's senior team recently held a productive discussion about future housing needs and investment in the town centre area, agreeing to collaborate on a ‘high-level review’ of the investment requirements for the blocks at College Bank.

RBH has worked with the council on College Bank since 2016.

Councillor John Blundell, cabinet member for regeneration, business, employment and town centre living said: "We are pleased that RBH has agreed to collaborate on this piece of work and we will get it started straight away."

Gareth Swarbrick, chief executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, said: "Our meeting was very constructive, we are happy to support this piece of work over the coming weeks and will share key information confidentially with the council to enable it to be completed."

With the plans to demolish four of the town’s Seven Sisters tower blocks being controversial from the start, concerns have been raised that RBH’s figures ‘do not add up’ – fearing there will simply not be enough properties for those who have to move from their current homes under the proposals.

Despite RBH’s insistence that all tenants who wish to stay in the ‘town centre area’ will be able to do so, Mr Swarbrick was heavily criticised failing to provide in-depth information when he appeared before a scrutiny committee last year.

RBH insists that the cost of refurbishing four of the Seven Sisters makes creating a co-operative model financially unviable – and its plan will create a ‘better mix and quality’ of homes in the ‘town centre area’, with ultimately no net loss of properties.

Mr Swarbrick has previously said if the authority were able to find investment to ‘give the blocks a long-term life, providing safe and secure homes first for the 21st century’ then RBH would ‘happily agree’ to it taking over responsibility for its future.

In the past, Mr Swarbrick has also said that RBH will continue to share information with the council, such as the latest independent cost estimate which puts the price of refurbishing the seven blocks at £93m (having previously been put at £70m).

Additional reporting: Nick Statham, Local Democracy Reporting Service