Dundee

Problems:

• unemployment
• antisocial behaviour
• drugs
• low demand

‘Scab! Scab! Scab!” The bitter greeting rang out as white vans with wire mesh protecting their windows forced their way past the angry mob into the Timex factory on the northern edge of Dundee. The year was 1993 and the loss of 320 jobs at the factory was the latest blow to the ancient east coast city. One in 10 people were unemployed and jobs promised by politicians who had rebranded Dundee “the City of Discovery” had yet to materialise. The dispute with US multinational Timex – which had once employed more than 5,000 Dundonians – was the last thing the city and in particular the Ardler estate needed.

“It was not a good time,” recalls Bette Gurvan, a retired former Timex worker who lives on what is now known as Ardler Village. “Timex was on the doorstep at Ardler. A lot of people from around here used to work there. I worked there for five years and then for 31 at NCR [an ATM manufacturer]. When Timex closed, a lot of people went elsewhere to work and so moved out of the estate. I’m really worried that the same thing will happen again now.”

The reason for Gurvan’s fears are that more than 1,000 jobs are to be lost in the city this year – 650 will go when NCR transfers jobs to a plant in Hungary and a further 400 from Tesco’s distribution centre in the city. Gurvan has more reason than most to be upset at the potential demise of the once mighty Ardler estate. Her father worked here in the 1940s and in 1969 she moved with her husband to one of the four-storey tenement buildings that sat in the shadows of the six immense tower blocks on the new edge-of-town estate. “We were over the moon when we qualified for a home on Ardler,” she says. “It was a lovely estate. The house had an indoor toilet and central heating – those were huge things for us in those days.”

However, like so many post-war mass-housing developments, there was soon trouble in paradise. “In the late 1970s, you started to see the place run down,” says Gurvan. “Into the 1980s, it was beginning to look tatty.”

Simon Bayliss, project director at architect HTA, adds: “The problem was the total lack of family accommodation. There were lots of one- and two-bedroom flats that all had good space standards but they weren’t big enough. They also suffered from problems endemic to these types of buildings: damp, condensation, decay. As a result people were moving away and there were lots of voids and lots of boarded-up flats. The area was definitely in decline.”

Drugs, crime and antisocial behaviour resulted in the whole area suffering from very low demand

Gordon Laurie, Sanctuary Scotland

Gurvan and Gordon Laurie, chief executive of Sanctuary Scotland Housing Association, both tell tales of fires in abandoned properties and drug dealing. “There were problems with drugs, crime and antisocial behaviour. As a result the whole area suffered from very low demand,” says Laurie.

In 1993, at the same time as former Timex employees were clashing with police at the nearby factory, Dundee council was deciding what to do about Ardler. It was the sole landlord for an estate that had once been home to more than 4,500 people in 3,160 homes, but by that time the population was down to half that. According to Communities Scotland, Ardler was among the worst 15% most deprived areas in Scotland. The council decided the tower blocks had to go. Drastic as it was, though, this was only a stop-gap solution. “In 1997 the council identified Ardler as a priority area,” says Elaine Zwirlein, head of housing at Dundee council. “This was an estate that needed radical regeneration. We couldn’t just tinker around the edges.”

The result was a competition to redevelop Ardler, which was won by Sanctuary Scotland HA, housebuilder Wimpey and HTA in 1998. “We wanted to do this very much in partnership with the community,” says Zwirlein. “They were keen that we took away the poor-quality housing and replaced it with high-quality housing. We also put in much more family housing at much lower densities. We wanted not only to mix the home types but also to mix tenures so that if people wanted to buy a house, they didn’t have to leave the estate as had been the case in the past.” As a result of this inclusive approach, the stock transfer of the properties on Ardler in 2001 to Sanctuary was backed by more than 90% of the residents who voted.

The £80m project involved the construction of 730 social rented properties with a further 200 for sale and another 120 for low-cost homeownership. Although the Ardler now only has 1,000 homes, there is, according to HTA’s Bayliss “quite a vibrancy about the place”. Gurvan laments the loss of much of the green space, but even she admits that the estate is “very nice to walk around now”.

Besides the physical regeneration of what was to become Ardler Village, with its new “village centre with boulevards and avenues running out from it”, the Sanctuary/Wimpey/HTA team were told by the council’s employment steering group for Ardler that they had to help tackle unemployment on the estate. “We were keen to ensure that there were apprenticeship schemes for young workers,” says Zwirlein. “A range of small businesses set up in the area as a result.”

But with more than 1,000 job cuts looming large over the Tay estuary, what hope is there for the third incarnation of the Ardler? Zwirlein looks on the bright side. “There is still healthy demand for housing of all types. Properties are available for people on higher or lower incomes.” She cites the Ardler Village Trust as another reason to be cheerful. “The creation of the trust by us and Sanctuary is key. It has to continue the work of the employment steering group to ensure that job opportunities are maximised.” Gurvan hopes this will prove enough. “There are not really any other industries in Dundee. There are training schemes to re-employ people – including my nephew. But he says he has no idea what he will be able to do once NCR goes.”