North Lanarkshire Council has been authorised to use a compulsory purchase order to obtain the last remaining privately-owned flat in a Gowkthrapple estate so it can build new houses on the site.
This is the latest development in a long-running process which began in 2005 when several issues relating to housing around Stanhope Place were identified, including high numbers of empty properties, non-existent right to buy and poor balance of housing.
From 2017 onwards, the council has been working towards demolishing towers and low-rise blocks in the area in order to provide replacement homes.
The local authority has plans to regenerate the area by constructing up to 300 new homes.
Of 428 properties, only three were privately owned with the rest part of the council’s housing stock and two of the private owners voluntarily sold their property to the council.
All tenants have been relocated although Ukrainian refugees were given temporary housing in Birkshaw Tower.
Their permanent rehousing is an element of a later phase of the council’s masterplan for Gowkthrapple.
Lanarkshire Live revealed back in 2022 that Nick Wisniewski’s home in Stanhope Place was the only remaining property occupied in the area.
Nick was initially approached in 2019, and negotiations have been ongoing ever since, most recently in March when a council officer offered alternative accommodation but this was refused.
Nick owns the ground floor flat, having bought it at a discount from the local authority under the now defunct Right to Buy scheme.
He says he bought the flat to give him peace of mind and he wouldn’t have to worry about rent or mortgage repayments following his retirement from work.
Nick added last April: “I’m going to hang fire until I get some sort of suitable offer. They can’t touch my block until they get confirmation of the compulsory purchase order, and I think that could be a long time yet.”
Despite verbal accepting an offer in 2021 to sell their home to the local authority, Nick changed his mind and has subsequently stated he was not interested in the property offered or any other properties which the council might offer, nor would he consider a shared equity option of another flat of similar size.
Although councillors unanimously approved the compulsory purchase order at a recent planning committee meeting, efforts to persuade the owner of the flat to sell voluntarily will continue.
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