Last resident of housing estate being demolished still refuses to move - despite £40k offer
The 'last man standing' on a housing estate being demolished is still refusing to move after two years - after the council upped its offer to £40K.
Nick Wisniewski, 67, is the sole resident of flats in Gowkthrapple, Wishaw, Scotland, which once held over 200 people across 128 blocks.
Nick Wisniewski, 67, is the sole resident of flats in Gowkthrapple, Wishaw, Scotland, which once held over 200 people across 128 blocks.
Transcript
00:00 Welcome to Gowthrapple, my name is Nick Bysboski. I've stayed here in Stanhope Place for 21 years.
00:07 There used to be about 200 families stayed in this street. Now I'm the last one. It's certainly a ghost town.
00:26 I had a newsletter through the door a few weeks ago about out here and it basically said that in July they would be doing the roads.
00:40 In August you would see foundations being started and actually in September you'll see houses starting to be built.
00:48 Whether the council is going to offer me one of them I don't know but that is how it's going at the moment.
01:06 When I moved in here 21 years ago this place was a nightmare. It was all horrible purple painted and horrible.
01:18 The place wasn't full at that time. It was basically druggies and junkies that stayed here.
01:27 There were just a few in the block and when the right to buy was due to complete a few years ago I decided rather than pay rent it would be beneficial for me to buy the flat.
01:45 Once the few druggies and junkies moved out years ago the block was filled up, everywhere was filled up with Polish people and it was fine. Everybody spoke to you.
01:59 The council, I said that guy phoned me a year past November, it all started from then.
02:23 They kept emailing me telling me you're going to need to move out, we're going to start demolishing in April.
02:31 April last year we're going to start demolishing which was total lies. You're going to be the only person left there.
02:38 I would speak to other people in the block and say have you been told you have to get out?
02:45 They would say no, nobody said anything to us but they had said it to me. That went on for months and months and gradually you see an odd person moving out.
02:57 It took a long time for them to gradually get one by one, get people out of the different blocks. I don't mean this badly but the ones that didn't work, the incentive they were given was to move out.
03:17 It was a great day, getting a lot of money to them and slowly and gradually they all started to move out.
03:39 It's hard to think but you were struggling to get a car parked out there, that's how busy it was, how full it was with all the Polish people. Some of them had two cars.
03:59 It's a shame in a sense, quite honestly. They say it's progress, I don't know that it is.