Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds provided decent and affordable housing - Yorkshire Post Letters

I refer to Peter Tuffrey`s article on Quarry Hill Flats (September 10) when he concludes that they were demolished because they were “a miserable failure”. Tuffrey gives no evidence to support this conclusion.

In 1972 I was elected as a very young councillor on the former Leeds City Council (Leeds Corporation) when I was part of a discussion about the rehousing of Quarry Hill tenants.

I was not a member of the Housing Committee so do not know the full details. Apart from the problem of finding alternative accommodation for all the residents, many were reluctant to leave because of the convenience provided of well-designed living accommodation and on-site facilities such as a laundry, a nursery for preschool children, the internal gardens for residents and a safe playing area for their children and the convenience of being near to shops and jobs.

Before my election the decision to demolish had already been taken because the flats were structurally unsound and one block had already been demolished.

The Corporation had spent quite a considerable sum to extend their life by ten years but nothing further could be done.

I recall my disappointment at the time because architecturally they were ground-breaking and were a feature of the City which many Leeds people and visitors admired.

Now I would say that architecturally they were too monolithic in scale and certainly would not have been given planning permission today.

But Councillor Jenkinson had a monolithic problem of slum housing. It was his drive and commitment to give people decent and affordable housing and that is something we should never forget.

Jenkinson`s legacy was that Leeds City Council embarked on a policy of providing decent affordable houses for its people until, unfortunately, subsequent Governments stopped us from doing that.