New lease of life for 'Beirut' estate

IT'S a beautiful sunny day in Bramham Road, crisp but clear. Three young schoolgirls, sent home for the day because the water is off at school, are standing on tiptoe to peer curiously through the windows of the new Chapelfields Community House.

"Can we come in?" asks the bravest of them, her face pinched with the cold, asks eagerly.

Dot Gunnee, the community house's caretaker, has no objections, and soon there is a small group inside, exploring the new building excitedly.

The people of Chapelfields are rightly proud of their new community house. They played a big part in helping architect Phil Bixby design it, points out Chapelfields Residents' Association chairwoman Rosie Wall.

"We had a steering group, and we all put our ideas forward," she says. "We were involved right from the beginning."

It shows. The new community house - which replaces a youth centre that closed two years ago - is a marvel of economic design. Downstairs, there's a kitchen and bright, sunlit caf area. It can be divided into three separate, smaller rooms, or kept as one big single room. There is also a computer room, where there will be up to three computers for locals to use and access to the internet, and a "quiet room" separated from the other areas by a sound-proofed door.

Upstairs, there is a single big meeting room which doubles as a dance floor - and which can, again, be divided into separate rooms - plus several offices, one of them for use by a youth worker and a Compass youth drugs worker.

There's even a talking lift, which proudly announces "lift going up" when you press the button.

Maggie Sykes, who, with her one-year-old grand-nephew Jack, is given a guided tour of the building by Dot, is hugely impressed.

"I think it's great!" she says. "It's just what's wanted. You need somewhere like this, don't you?"

Locals have big plans for the house.

It is not yet quite finished. The keys were handed over by City of York Council late last year. Already, the house has played host to Santa (just before Christmas). And it is now being used for a regular youth club, plus bingo and line dancing.

But the telephones have yet to be connected - and the promised cooker has yet to appear.

Dot, sitting at a table in the caf area, can't wait.

"I want to open it properly as a caf in the mornings, for mums out shopping or coming back from school after dropping their kids off," she says. "But no cooker, no caf!"

That, insists Rosie Wall, will soon be rectified. And she sees the new community house going on to become a real focal point for the whole community.

She sees it being used by self-help groups, victim support, a drop-in jobs club, the youth service - and anyone else who wants to hire it, for example, for private parties.

There are even plans for regular table-top sales - a kind of car boot sale, but held inside in the warm.

"We're just experimenting at the moment!" she says. "But we really hope it can help us get our community spirit back."

Chapelfields is well on the way to doing that already.

Together with the new Costcutters store which opened recently on the corner, the community house is the final piece in a £1.2 million jigsaw that has transformed the heart of this estate.

Five years ago, some locals had dubbed this part of York "Beirut".

Sanderson House, the ugly, graffiti-daubed block of flats with a row of shops beneath on the other side of the road from what was then the youth centre, was a target for vandals and trouble-makers - and it was, locals say, earning the estate an unfair reputation.

In the first phase of a £1.2 million regeneration, Sanderson House was demolished and replaced with 12 new affordable homes. The first brick was laid in early 2003 - and the new homes were completed by the end of that year.

The second phase involved replacing the ageing, unsuitable youth centre, building the new Costcutters store, and adding a further 11 affordable homes.

That process is now just about complete: and the heart of the Chapelfields estate is almost unrecognisable from the "Beirut" of five years ago.

It is not going to solve all the estate's problems - vandalism, anti-social behaviour, drug abuse - overnight. The bars on the back windows of the new community house, and the special blue lights in the toilets that are designed to be too dim for addicts to be able to see their veins to inject, are an acknowledgement of that.

Vandals are already trying to target the new community house, too - some of the guttering has been damaged.

But Rosie Wall is confident the corner has been turned. The estate's poor reputation has always been exaggerated, she insists. "There's never been any more trouble on this estate than on any others. It's a nice place to live."

But now it has been physically transformed, she says - and having the new community house and Costcutters store has breathed new life into it.

"Before, when the shop closed, you didn't see people on the street," she says. "Now, you do - you get people walking to the shop and stopping for a chat. It (the area) is coming alive again."

The minor vandalism is something that will soon be dealt with, she says determinedly. The community house belongs to the people of Chapelfields. "We've taken ownership of that building now. And we will nip it (the vandalism) in the bud."

Chapelfields: a chequered history

Chapelfields has developed a reputation for crime, drug abuse, vandalism and anti-social behaviour - some would say unfairly. In recent years, high-profile incidents have included:

Sanderson House, now demolished and replaced with new affordable homes, being repeatedly targeted by vandals and graffiti artists, earning the area the nickname "Beirut".

Trouble on the buses: the area became notorious for young thugs targeting buses - which has led to night-time services being suspended several times.

A gang of youths armed with pickaxe handles and bricks went on the rampage in May 2004.

Rosie Wall, chairwoman of the Chapelfields Residents' Association, however, insists the estate's reputation is unfair. It has no more problems than any other York estate - and is actually a great place to live, she says. The fact that there are so many families, like her own, who have several generations living on the estate proves that.

Ward councillor and city council leader Steve Galloway agrees. "Ninety-nine per cent of people are great people who care about their neighbours," he says.

George Carter, a committee member of the steering group which helped design the new community house, says it is only a tiny minority of people who are responsible for the estate's problems. He has been living on the estate for 50 years, he says. "And I love it here."

July 2002: City of York Council chiefs announced a million-pound project to revitalise the heart of the Chapelfields estate known by some locals as "Beirut". Sanderson House, an ugly block of flats with a row of shops beneath which had long been a target for vandals would be demolished and replaced with between ten and 12 affordable family homes, they said.

Plans were already being drawn up to revamp the youth and community centre opposite and build a new shop, they added. Paul Stamp, City of York Council's housing development manager, said: "Hopefully, this project will ultimately revitalise the whole community. It will give a massive confidence boost to what has been one of York's problem areas."

April 2003: The first brick in the complex of 11 affordable family homes, plus one home specially adapted for wheelchair users, that is to replace the now-demolished Sanderson House is laid by the Lord Mayor of York, Coun David Horton.

November 2003: Work on the 12 new houses is completed, marking the end of Phase 1 of the area's £1.25 million regeneration.

February 2004: The old youth and community centre is closed. The 1970s building was unsuitable for community use because it was too big, too expensive to heat, and could only be used by one group at a time. There was talk of trying to modernise it, but in the end it was decided it would be cheaper to build an entirely new community house.

March 2004: The old youth and community centre is gutted by fire, before it can be demolished.

November 2005: The new community house is opened for the public to look round for the first time.

January 2006: bingo and line dancing start as the community house comes into use properly.

A meeting of the Chapelfields Ward Committee will be held at the community house at 7.30pm next Wednesday. It will, says Chapelfields ward councillor and city council leader Steve Galloway, be an ideal opportunity for anyone who has not seen around it to come and have a look.

A management committee to run the community house is being set up. A meeting will be held there on April 26. The more people who can come along and get involved, the better, says residents' association chairwoman Rosie Wall. "This is your community house," she says. "We hope you will come and use it."

Updated: 10:28 Friday, February 10, 2006