£20,000 Houses In A Boarded Up Seaside Town!
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- Опубліковано 15 бер 2023
- / wanderingturnip
www.buymeacoffee.com/wanderin...
I went to the seaside town of Horden, in county Durham, to visit the streets where houses are some of the cheapest you can buy in the UK.
I was really interested to figure out why they were so cheap and to take a look at the area. Horden is an ex mining town, and when the colliery shut down in 1987, all the work and the reason for people being there disappeared. You can imagine how busy this place would have been when that mine was open. It operated from 1900 - 1987.
Their were entire streets that were boarded up and I managed to get a look in 2 different properties which were on sale at the time of visiting.
It seems that the town suffers from a severe vandalism problem, making it hard for properties to be done up, leaving the towns looking like they do. The answer, a lovely chap showing me round one house is told me, is that it has to be local landlords or people who can respond quickly. When these houses end up in the hands of outside investors, without a care for the area, they quickly fall into this cycle of damage, try to sell, repeat and repeat.
The people up here are absolutely great, such a friendly welcoming town where everyone was up for a chat.
It is a real shame to see so many streets boarded up especially in a town so close to the sea, which I go look at in the end.
#property #housing #abandoned #derelictplaces #derelict #explore #wander #north #northeast #invest #money
What annoys me is that developers gobble-up green land for housing, when brown sites like this, with infrastructure - roads, shops etc - in place, are left to rot and communities to die. Your video proves how pitiful our planning laws are - developers need incentives to regenerate ares such as this, rather than rape yet more of our green-and-pleasant land.
Who's going to buy them . Nobody wants to live up north . Everything above Birmingham is dead and never coming back .
Very well said! 👍🏻
What annoys me is when people like you have opinions but are totally clueless. There is a mass housing shortage on our tiny island and the government have a quota to construct 300,000 new houses per year, but consistently fall short.
@@FarmsVilla no, not well said. Completely moronic.
@@kenstills4406 so why not regenerate these houses instead of taking more greenbelt land? what makes you not clueless?
It's mad how London focussed the UK economy is. So many jobs in London with insufficient housing and people unable to afford to buy and having to rent whilst other parts of the country have too many houses and not enough jobs.
Just saw the news that 300 tenants fought for one property in Bristol. Also my friend had to go through a bidding war for her rented studio in London last year. The only modern solution will be to make remote working more common so people can scatter around the country more. Because many workers down south were people who fled dead northern towns, surely many wouldn’t mind moving back if the towns were made nice. Problem is the locals left behind, they usually don’t understand how this could have happened and are extremely bitter towards outsiders or non poor people, which is scaring away any redevelopment efforts
Hopefully, remote working addresses this, a lot of jobs can be done from home.
I do some remote work (freelance video work) and one issue with it is people from other countries can do the same work as you for a $1phr which makes it nearly impossible to find ok paid jobs let alone good paying ones.
I'm not sure if this would become a problem for uk companies working in other fields but I do wonder if they would get to the stage when they question why they would pay uk staff 30k plus a year for a job they could pay somebody 5k a year for overseas.
Never forget that its no accident this is the case. So long as the right people are making a fortune they really don't care about the human cost elsewhere. The UK is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
@@creationbeatsuk the rot set in when everything was sold to foreign investors from the 1970s onwards by Margaret Thatcher.
I remember moving to Liverpool a couple of decades ago and in some areas there was block after block after block of boarded up houses. I remember walking around the Welsh Streets in Toxteth (of Peaky Blinders fame) and it was a surreal experience. Walking through the completely abandoned streets you could almost hear the sounds of bygone eras in the silence. I think that between High Park Street and South Street there were 10 streets or around that many and I walked up one and around the corner and down another occasionally finding a single house occupied in an otherwise completely abandoned street it was eerie. The streets were renovated a few years back and the houses are back to their former glory.
Take me back to the Welsh Streets as a child and live a few streets away from Madryn Street no/9 home of Ringo Starr before they moved to Admiral Grove around the corner....This all happened late fifties ...memories
Toxteth was a no go zone all throughout my childhood. It was wrecked and notorious for being bad.
I’m from Horden. My Dad was a Miner and a Sea Coal man. His words “Horden is God’s Country” full of “proper people”. Great video.
Good to hear from people who are from here. As you say, the people are amazing. Cheers for watching!
Coal miners were proper people I’m from cardiff my great great grandfather was a coal miner killed in the massive mining disaster in 1913 universal colliery senghennyd
Now it's smack head central
Drugd criminals and sunderland supports aye
@bigcheesy718 they put smack where they wanted to to destroy
My family are from Wigan originally and the mines closed before I was born but almost all the men in my family worked down the pits. Makes me so angry what Thatcher did to these communities literally destroyed them and their lives leaving them with skills that couldn't be transferred easily to other industries hence why there are so many communities still like this. The damage one rotten politician can do to entire communities!!
I live in Peterlee (the neighbouring town to Horden) and have all my life. Just let me say thank you for recognising out history and treating us and our home with respect.
Thank you for this thought provoking and amazing video. We, as a Nation, have lost so much of our heritage and history and our culture. Keep up your amazing journey and thank you for taking us all along with you. Your Dad, Grandad, Great-Grandad and all the local displaced people of this once prosperous town, all salute you and will all be proud of what you are doing young man
Hey thank you for this. Such a nice comment to read, nice for others to feel that importance of heritage 😀😀
Wow, this exactly the same reason why here in Russia in northern Siberia bunch of semi-abandoned towns like Vorkuta and Norilsk. These towns were literally built from the scratch by the soviet government around the mining facilities. Workers could only work in these facilities. These towns were prospering but after the fall of the Soviet Union workers stopped getting their salaries which was the reason why many people left these towns.
Councils and politicians need to be held to account for this shocking situation.
They’ve given up here I reckon
Once again it is a case of continuous change of local government. I dont know why it is that when ever I see an old town/village in decline in the UK , it seems to always have had its own local council taken away from them.
@@he1ar1 The country is falling apart at the seams in real time and those in power do not seem to give a damn.
Totally💯
So I assume someone once owned the empty properties? Or are they council properties? I'm curious to what happens if they're owned by someone, do they just get absorbed back into the government once empty?
Its a bloody crime to see so many empty properties with so many homeless people on the streets .You give these to people to do up themselves and take care of it would bring new life to these streets and 100% would stop any vandalism .
yep. There should be nobody homeless in this country. Theres thousands of empty properties in every town and city.
It's a noble and altruistic cause but homelessness is an extremely complex problem and nearly all those who are have huge health problems both physical and mental. Plus government would rather spend the money they are quite happy to steal from us benefitting the rest of the world before our own.
Homeless can't take care of themselves yet take care of a home
@@NaNa-wj8tw You mean sending Billon's to other countries so they can fight other peoples war's .😠
lab: Stoke on Trent has an area the same as this - The Council sold them for *£1* but the catch was that you HAD TO take on a mortgage of £30k, from the Council, to do up the house which you bought. Yes, it did work, but the area is still the worst one in Stoke, and many buyers went on the dole ... and so the downward spiral begins - again 😒😒
Another superb report, on a Boarded up Seaside Town, heartbreaking to see street after street, of empty houses, many vandalised. The closure of the mines will always be controversial, in the NW town I was born in, quite a few miners lived, and to see them suffering as they grew older, from the conditions of working down the pit, was so sad to see. Remember as a very young child, Mum getting up to get the fire burning, which originally heated the water, struggling in the cold winter months. Coming back from my friends at night, and the road passing a brook, and in the winter there would be smog, all down to chimneys & smoke. My opinion is we should have planned before the pits closes, what industry would replace those jobs? My home town had the largest glass industry in the world, and the major one developed what was known as plate glass, jobs just grew & grew, I was the only boy in my glass not to go into the glass industry, I went into working for a major newspaper group, and was taught in every department, and when commercial radio came to the UK, I had a good background to go into radio. The glass industry was owned by one man, Sir Harry Pilkington, he looked after his workers so well, even when they retired, meals delivered to homes. But, for the first time unions started to control the factory, and for the first time in its history, the Unions called out the workers to strike, and in the end the whole industry closed down? Driving through the town it is unrecognisable, not as many terraced houses, the problem is building new modern homes, on green fields, that once produced crops, but now we rely on importing veg far too much?
this video really brought home how deprived the area is due to the mines shutting. i dont think i've ever really understood the heartache of the people who lived and worked 30 years ago. you managed to give me a glimpse of how it has affected local populations. thank you
It's not due to the mines shutting down. It's bad planning by a Tory government. This post is a touch hyperbolic. One story by a disenchanted gramps is far from the entire political history. At the time Thatcher was telling the UN that global warming was a problem and that this was part of the reason she had set a plan in place to shut down the mines; all the while she was setting up deals with Russian gas and Saudi oil. The mines were actually slowly closed over decades, not suddenly like this post suggests.
This post is inferring that the destitution is due to fossil fuel extraction being mitigated. That's fossil fuel lobbying if I ever heard it. The real problem is that no progressive industries replaced the old because capitalists moved their investments abroad and away from UK tax laws. It was a right-wing capitalist lobbied policy that was scribbled on a napkin by Thatcher's mentors of her yuppy youth. Using the city of London as the main cash cow by funnelling all the dirty petrochemical company cash from countries without regulation through London banks and back into the pockets of oligarchs clean and tax-free. Now hawkish developers are profiting on what has been stolen from our community by autocratic wealth-driven snobs in Westminster and their greedy ilk from abroad.
All the far-right do is point the finger of blame at others. They are now accusing China of commercial aggression by, what they have termed as; flooding the market with EV's. No. It is not aggressive. It is a necessity the UK gov should have already planned and have been doing. But the Etonians and their bigoted core of politicians were too busy counting the backhander cash from fossil fuel extraction; companies that have been raking in vast amounts of cash without putting any back into the public purse. The mines may have closed but the money is still there. And it is the fossil fuel companies who are holding onto it bc they want it for that rainy day when their mining operations end. They should be investing in society and progressive tech but aren't bc they don't know how to do anything else but suck people dry.
The mines had to eventually shut down anyway. Coal is disgusting.
@@bluegold21 "It's Capitalisms fault that central planning the economy doesn't work" 10/10. You even managed to work in praising china like the little socialist drone you are.
@@bluegold21 emmmmmmmmmm I grew up in a pit village. It is actually the best thing that ever happened. Any teary eyed analysis is not just false it's propaganda. There was a period of stagnation prior to 79' which meant the situation needed a more radical solution. I promise you having lived in these areas a lot of people voted conservative because they knew socialism didn't work. They were living proof. The people were mean, limited and had a sense of self entitlement that made you vomit. I got a good education with the aim of getting out of there, went to London, got a good job and became a multi millionaire. Without those radical Thatcher reforms I would have stayed and spent time in jail because when you grow up in these places you draw a line. Any bullying of you or people you love, any meanness, any thieving gets a response. When you live like that all the time you lose that sense of fear. Fear is an important emotion it keeps you alive and healthy. I know what you are thinking .... you are thinking I am a one off in my year/ in my crowd or group of mates. No. I am actually in the majority. Everyone that had something about them got out of there.... They may not have made a lot of money but they had the experiences to understand that some people were too mean to function.
@@bluegold21 Darlin' Harold Wilson shut down more mines than Thatcher did. I'm not a Tori, nor an apologist for them, but
people always want things to be simple, black and white, but the reality is different.
Used to live there. My older brother was born in Horden in 9th Street I think it was. And later we moved to Peterlee, my Grandfather and Uncles worked down the "pit". We went to a school in Horden and through the windows we could see the wheels turning as the cages took the miners down into the mine.
My brother and I went to the miners canteen and had chips there for our dinner if we didn't want to eat at the school.
I remember seeing the Colliery & Working Men's Club bands marching through those Streets on holidays - the streets were packed and nothing like what you saw when you made this video.
I loved to read that !
Amazing memories thank you for sharing this.
And how they loved grafting down a pit? They didn't wish for a cushier job. If the won the the pools or lottery they would have soon got bored and begged to go back and work down pit?!
Some of those properties could be made bigger. Two properties next to each other could be made into a really good large family home, and that also gives a larger yard or made into a nice garden. Some places have taken a street and gutted, which made disabled accessible and all ex military with support group moved into them. They were fab. There is a lot that can be done with those properties. Charities can take them and make good for homeless. It's never ending the way they can be filled and appreciated.
I saw a program a few years ago where they took a street like this, forget where it was, and the would-be tenants were trained in doing up the houses and once finished moved in. Not only did they get a nice home, they learned new skills, created a sense of community and felt a sense of pride in the street they had renovated.
Nice big house with drunken zombies wandering through the yard
Sounds like Habitat for Humanity
@@LilyGazou it's a crying shame something isn't done about these empty properties going to ruin when someone who is in need could be housed. Because you have a home and comfortable it's easy to scoff at people's ideas. If you were in need of a home yourself would be praying or begging for a property just like that and crying that they were empty when they could be in used with you in one of them.
I wrote similar some time ago, on a similar site - and had to check I wasn't reading my own comment. Every so often, I go to write I agree! and find I'm agreeing with myself! (Blush)
Those places could be cleared and 1 bedroom bungalows with no steps put in for disabled, with bigger gardens.
Small studio apartments x 4 with small yards, to make it easier for pensioners to have a safe fenced place to let the dog go to the loo.
Some streets could have 1 larger house on 3 blocks, to get nicer houses and nicer gardens.
Great video i find it shocking how the government don't turn them back into council houses affordable living as they stand it not viable for a builder to buy and do up . As a Builder myself i know you would need to spend £15k-20 per property to bring them back to life Rewire , Plastering including damp proof , roofing repairs , standard kitchen , plumbing ,new doors and windows. Take care enjoy your videos thank you.
Respectfully, you are far more informed on this than I am, as an American who has no idea what labor/supplies cost there (despite studying abroad in London and having been to multiple UK cities dozens of times over the last 30 years). Yet, I honestly believe 15-20K per property sounds too low?
Heck, if that is all it would cost, I'd hire you to renovate and rewire the building I buy there. Seriously.
The state of some of these houses would cost way more than £20,000 to bring up to a livable standard.
If people are trying to sell these for £20-30 grand then there is no point in anyone trying to develop these. They will lose money trying to sell them.
20-30 grand sounds like land value only. Being so close to the sea, I can't understand why a developer wouldn't snap it all up, demolish the lot and rebuild. The housing would be a lot more attractive than any renovation to the existing properties.
Having said that, my Dad's father's family came from that general area, but more inland, from Evenwood and Ingleton. The Evenwood branch of the family were miners, and his ancestors were either miners or mine blacksmiths. My ggrandfather died young, of TB, from working in the mines and living in damp, overcrowded houses. My grandfather joined the army at 14 and never went down the mines. The Ingleton side were market gardeners, but my ggrandmother deserted her dying husband and their four children, all of whom were under 5 years old, so I don't know much about her family except from what I've traced. Last time we were back in the UK (2015), I visited them both and Ingleton in particular was in a sad state. My direct ancestor left the land for one of the churches there to be built and it was boarded up and the land overgrown. The whole village looked sad and neglected. We didn't stay long, because frankly, it didn't feel safe. Very different from when we visited in 1996.
This one genuinely breaks my heart. My mums entire side of the family used to live in Horden so I spent a significant portion of my life up there. To see what's happened to it over the last 25 years or so....... 💔😢
Those fake doors and windows are brilliant 😂. 10/10 for creativity. I also think the government need to look at themselves for what they've allowed to happen in lots of small towns.
Problem is the Tories don't give a shit, infact I bet good money on them even laughing about it
@@UnjustifiedRecs It's not just them though. Labour had 13 years and didn't do anything about it either.
@@Martin-88 aye, they are all pretty bad but there is no redeeming features of the conservatives, blatant day in day out robbery and illegal activity and they just keep getting away with it
@@UnjustifiedRecs those houses are on sale for over a decade, clearly noone wants them
@@AlainnCorcaigh exactly our point, these could be renovated to a minimum standard and be used for social housing, but instead the are rotting
Unsettling to see what happens once the heart & soul has been ripped out of these once busy, lively neighbourhoods. The world has changed but not for the better.
Yeah it really is. Thank you for watching 👍
Love your passion for the history of these towns so interesting. Thank you
Fascinating. Would be good to transform a town like that into an IT hot-house.
Watched this with hubby last night, and we were both completely blown away with the way you spoke to locals to try and understand the issues they faced, and moreover we were very touched hearing the poem. A superb video, more 'wandering' youtubers, would do well to emulate your genuine caring side to the places they visit.
Ah thank you for this. I really appreciate you watching and for the nice words 😀
Great Video , of broken Britain Come up Tories. Bring Buttties and a flask and see how to keep trying your best 😭😭😭 😩😩😩😩😩😩
It's so apocalyptic looking! ..almost eerie.
I cant imagine anyone ever wanting to live in one of these, no matter how nice it was renovated, being surrounded by all of those derelict properties would be really depressing and downright creepy at night
try sleeping in tent in woods
People used to say that about some burrows in NYC where, now, a modest, renovated townhouse is over 2 million.
@@colettelongo2080cannit compare horden terraces to new york city can we 😂😂😂
my dad came from newcastle. my grandads street looked remarkebly similar to 5:38 . the red bricked walled gardens and terraced houses are nostalgic.
This place looks like a good place to have a new industry boom within it. I wonder if one day it'll become a tech hub or similar. I think that'd be really nice and move a lot of people back into the town.
Ityll get bulldozed for modern buildings
Exactly what I was thinking! With more people working from home (myself included) and the RIDICULOUS house prices, decent houses starting at £250k. Seeing a house for £20k is a bargain!! I'm young and have the DIY mentality. If a bunch of us work from home move there and renovate, I can imagine it being revitalised. But it would take a lot of like-mindedness.
The people are friendly. The only issue is the anti-social behaviour "this is why we can't have nice things!" because there's risk of it getting ruined, which is off-putting.
Who owns all these I wonder?
Just an idea, if you could form a group of individuals buyers to buy in bulk, you've got a community in place all looking out for each other at the same time, which would install a little confidence in the project, such a shame to see all those empty houses in 2023 😢
Yeah that would be more reassuring if there were loads together good point 👍
Trouble is investors from down south who don't know the area well have done a similar thing and it didn't work out, houses get trashed, rent doesn't get paid etc.
@@jimmy1671 Perhaps Alternative finance lenders could fill this gap JV with councils etc , agree its risky for small investors , rent schemes could be sorted.
@@richardmcdougall233 There's been many people and associations try and do things like that unfortunately, until you truly live here you would understand. Naive southern investors think if they buy up 10-20 run down houses plus a little renovation= total profit have been proven time and time again it's wrong, they still do to this day try with little success. Do a house up with 10k, get 3 months of paid rent 900, then Tennant gone but needs a further 10k spending cos copper gone and boiler took and house trashed.
Eventually in years to come they will all be knocked down and council or who ever will have to buy out all the owned houses which is what some owners are clinging onto.
People desperate for houses, enpty rows of property. How sad nobody can find a way to make this work.
It reminds me of a Catherine Cookson book the fifteen streets. Its sad to see so many houses empty when there's thousands waiting for homes to live in .I remember watching a documentary about a whole street Done up by DIY SOS for disabled veterans really made them into beautiful homes .I'm a miners daughter my dad was a miner in the Welsh Valleys and when they closed my parents had to move to Cardiff to find work living in rooms in a shared house until they got there first council house. They didn't want to move from the Valleys where they were born and bread but they didn't have any choice because the Valley were like a ghost town just like this place .I expect these houses will be bought up by these big companies and knocked down such a shame. I really enjoyed your video as sad as it is to see houses empty right by the seaside.
Slaves waiting on government waiting lists for months or years. Socialism in action.
Omg! This is a dreadful situation...so very sad. Thank you for showing everyone this....and thank you for letting us know the history... So informative. Debbi from Western Australia.
The beach is the same one used at the end of Get Carter when the pit was still open and the tailings were dumped in the sea
I think what your doing is excellent and the clearness ,enthusiasm you have for your work is a breath of fresh air. I hope you get more subscribers so you can get funds to go all around Britain , your content is top and deserves to be reaching more.
Hey thanks for this lovely comment 😀😀 nice feedback like this keeps me wanting to make stuff so that does the trick for me 👍👍
He'ds doing it to make money from the views on the video ,, have you not worked it out , you can do this on your phone as well ...
Great real life video, made me smile though when you said, can you imagine when the mines were here people would be enjoying themselves on the beach sunbathing etc. I lived and worked here from the age of 12 until 20 years old, i worked for a company in Horden called Maybelts. Nobody went on the beach when the mines were here only people like me with my air rifle and motorbike scrambler. also you had the men picking and shoveling coal waste from the beach, mine waste that was tipped into the sea on conveyors from the pits. Millions of tonnes of waste and thats not an exageration, I saw some of the gangs of sea coalers hauling the sea coal up the beach banks either with horse and trailer, some were more fortunate and had green godesses, they were the old army fire engines and the guys used to cut the back off of them and turn them into big pick up trucks. I used to see them all the time....was a sight to see. The sea was black with pit waste so you could not go swimming such was the polution. At one point it was one of the most poluted sea and beaches in the world. Having moved up there when i was 12 from Leicestershire i thought i had gone into the dark ages..........Such a tough hard life, these men and women worked so hard and i have nothing but respect for them, the mines did have to close because of two reasons, One being Margarate Thatcher who had it in for the poor mining community and second reason was the environmental disaster involving all the millions of tonnes of pit waste tipped into the sea.
The people were the salt of the earth and would do anything to help one another.....i still miss that today. Yes the mines had to close because of the enviromental damage being caused but the past and present government have not given enough help to these people. No wonder they feel displaced.
Oh thanks so much for this. I was actually expecting a comment as such because I realised just after making that comment about the beach that it probably was never like I said due to the mines…so thank you for a real honest view of what it was like 👍👍👍
Saw this video popup on my front-page of youtube, I live here, it's a terrible place being ruined by the youth and nothing will ever change, your video was awesome, thanks for covering my little goblin den of a town
I lost the game, thanks
This reminder is bringing me back to when I was living in Rhyl and seeing this everywhere around the road I lived on.
Thanks for doing this and highlighting some of the issues that get absolutely no press coverage, up here really feels forgotten about. Too far away from London for them to care.
Cheers for watching Joe means a lot 👍
Having been homeless with my two children in 2016 and being shoved in temporary accommodation, costing me over £7k to store my belongings, it makes me mad. The government should spend OUR money on refurbishing these houses for OUR young families. We are a disgrace of a nation. We don’t stand up to the bullies. They take our taxes and don’t spend it where we think it should be spent. WE vote in the MPs and then get bullied by their legislations. We don’t have to comp,y to the tyranny anymore.
Sorry to hear about that situation you have been in, but it’s very interesting to get a perspective from that side so thank you for this 🙌🙌
It's a fix
That's Britain
Totally backward
More concerned with looking big on the world stage
Vote for independent candidates only.
well said! I thought all these problems I saw could be fixed by labour, that this all happened because of neoliberalism under thatcher. But the truth - or what I think is the truth, that I'm beginning to understand - is that billionaires shouldn't be put in charge of people who can't even envision 100 thousand, that live day to day. I can hardly picture £100 tbh
I don't believe any government can fix anything at this point because they're all so short term, so focused on re-election and lining their pockets.
I'm not religious but I truly believe that the love of money is the root of all evil in this world. Hoarding wealth. Makes me feel ill.
I don't like being pessimistic so if anyone has any input I'd be glad to hear it haha
Also - I should've said this sooner - thank you for sharing your experiences, I'm sorry you and our family had to go through that. I'm wishing you the best x
This is exactly the channel that uk needs. Thanks !
Crazy that this popped up in my recommendations! Great video. You actually walk down the street I first grew up in and my Grandparents current house.
Has someone from the south it’s a real eye opener to see this video, I cannot believe in a country that is wealthy it cannot invest in these areas and the infrastructure, it must be so hard for the old boy from the pits seeing all the pubs/clubs closing down and still living in the area I wish all the people in these areas the best.
Yeah and this is just one small area. So many like it. Sad to see…but the people are all class!
The more pubs which close down the better in my view. My younger brother died at 40 thanks to liver failure due to alcohol and my father beat the shi* out of me and my step mum when I was a kid thanks to being drunk on whisky. Alcohol does more damage to society than anything else I know. Ban it.
All the investment is focused on London and the South East that’s the problem. The cities aren’t doing too badly but most northern towns have just been forgotten.
@@PeacockRhino such a shame, if the government was to revamp these areas it would bring employment to the areas for the people that are tradesman and woman, even if the government came up with a plan to get people involved with money to do it a idea that would benefit all but mostly the local people.
@ian x Liverpool has only recently had money thrown at it, but there’s still some areas with really cheap houses
It has a look of Some of the towns in the USA where big industries moved out and the property gets wrecked. It’s a shame and a shame for people living next to these empty houses.
Yeah I really want to go explore some abandoned towns in America if I get the chance
You've made a really good video, and it's obvious that your personal family history was palpable in the first few minutes of the video. Have worked in the area for a few years and you transported me back in time! Lovely and proud people, indeed.
In the late 60’s my uncle bought one of those houses. It was his first home with his wife. It was such a cosy little house with great neighbours and community. So sad to see it like this now.
My guess with the 80K ones is that it's a single developer that has bought them up over time for peanuts and is now trying to get permission to demolish them; obviously they'll take 80K if offered, but it won't be. Once the roofs go (by accident of course) they'll have to come down and the land will have value without those houses on it.
It's such a strange situation. Homelessness and housing shortages but then whole streets of boarded up houses. Obviously the ones with the fake doors painted on them are all owned by the same person or organisation, no doubt gradually buying out the area until nobody wants to live there, so they can demolish it and build a new prestigious seaside development full of 4 bed detached houses. The few remaining residents will be fully aware of this too, and known to the "youths" trashing the place, so they get left alone and wait until their houses are the last ones to sell so they can be knocked down, and nobody new ever moves in because of the enormous risk to safety. So many problems could be solved so easily if everyone worked together to bring this area and others like it back to life, but there's no money in that, so they don't. People suck.
why? Wouldn't they be allowed to build new houses there?
@@mradventurer8104 to build new houses there they first need for all residents to be vacated. They also need planning permission in the event that happens. Then they'd need to spend a lot of money to have the area demolished. There are lots of stops along the way that would hinder a large scale development. If you own 4 out of 5 houses in a row but one is owned by someone else, you need to buy it from them. You wouldn't buy it at market value to complete a set if you could just wait a few years for it to fall into disrepair and pick it up for nothing. If a developer is collecting the properties as suggested by the fake door painted boards everywhere, they're playing the long game. It's not a good time for building right now either due to inflated material costs. That will likely normalise within a few years.
@@mradventurer8104 Much easier to get planning permission with the houses down and easier to get permission to bring them down if you can show there is no demand for them.
Yeah, they buy places and sometimes build a bit of cheap crap, but what they are really after is the ground. Then they slowly let the homes turn into disgusting derelict slums so that they'll easily get council permission to tear them down. Then they build something huge and fancy on which they make a whopping profit.
How crazy that some houses are overcrowded and young people can't afford to buy. Businesses and the gov need to move in and invest in towns like this to bring the people in. It looks like it could be a terrific place to live in and on the coast too. Thanks for sharing
Yeah crazy isn’t it. Clearly not a housing shortage
@@wanderingturnip So true 👍
It could be but Levelling up with this government is a complete fraud. Tunbridge Wells has got levelling up money, but Barnsley, because it has a Labour council has not got a penny.
Won't happen except for the usual pound shops, aldi's and lidl's. Our economy is now a low paid service industry and most manufacturing is outsourced to countries with a cheaper labour force.
@@stevenhull5025 True, but before people will live there there has to be local employment.
I remember the times before the 1980's when we were a great manufacturing nation. In the post war rebuilding, most of the labour force lived in houses owned by the council, or the employer, at cheap rent which brought down our labour costs. End of coal was the end of cheap source of fuel & steel, & thus manufacturing. The frequent strikes in the '70's, miners, docks, car manufacturers, started it, then the sale of council housing, & increased cost of private housing.
Just a quick update from Horden David. Apparently, £6 million pound has been earmarked to be demolish Third Street, when the funds are available (if ever). Still watching all the video's mate!
I had a friend in Sunderland and her mother lived in Seaham. It’s a beautiful area and the people are so friendly and welcoming. I’d be happy to live there.
You came up my way, North East. Hope you liked it. A lot of the old colliery towns still have a lot of cheap housing mainly because there are no jobs without travelling into the bigger towns. So people move to the bigger towns. Blackhall Rocks and Crimdon etc are beautiful beaches. Take the dogs over there every now and again.
Blackhall Rocks seems much smaller then Horden, are there empty houses as well?priced similarilly...still looking for my past of paradice 😏
Still pisses me off that a house that is a complete wreck inside and needs that much work done in a ghost town area with a drug problem is selling for £39/40k. Absolutely hate this country
@AL I would negotiate that Offer if YOU were seriously interested in buying an abandoned property in this town ! UK Gov't should perform an Experiment on the Albanian Refugees by offering them Permanent Residency in a Work-To-Own Deal if they acquire an abandoned property then fix it up. Those Albanians could wash plenty of Cocaine $$$ thru real estate ventures in this town !
How can you hate a beautiful land as the UK.
Surely its the vampire cunts who have stacked the laws against the slaves in the UK that need a wooden stake.
Immigration is the problem
That’s why I hate Australia just as much
Don't forget to vote labour and tories or another world economic forum supported group to fix everything!!
A really respectful take on this issue. Well played mate.
I’m from Hartlepool about 2 miles away and we have plenty of this here too.
Regardless, you’ll always find nice people 🙏❤️
I love that the friendly old guy has an old-school ring on his mobile, legend.
otherwise he wouldnt know itas a phone ringing :)) old timer :))
Sad how the mining community was virtually ended overnight in the 80’s, I’m from Yorkshire and almost followed my elders into that industry but decided to take another route and glad i did. I particularly remember being at my grandparents house in Wakefield where the spoil heap was almost in the back garden, long gone now, thanks for sharing mate, Robbo 👌👍
Where's the best shop in Wakefield
Wasn't it Thatcher who moved from UK coal to cheap imports?
It makes me sad watching this video especially for the older generation that have worked and lived in this area their entire lives, all they have left are the memories of how things were, when all the people worked together and socialised together at the pub’s and working mens clubs. It would be wonderful to see all these homes being used and some sort of community thriving in these areas again.
Soon everyone with credit will be homeless, time for peeps to wake the Fck up
latest news.Seventh Street in Horden under police cordon after aggravated burglary...
It's very nostalgic that's for sure.
All the works of art dedicated to the Horden Colliery are beautifully made and to the point. They succeed in conveying this gratitude towards the jobs Horden Colliery provided during 87 years. They also show the inhumanity of such jobs, which take your heart away like the one of the Marra.
I think that street, that opens your video, was used in the filming of Billy Elliot. You should visit Queensgate in Pboro.
Great video. My grandmothers family were miners in co durham like yours. Tough life but proud people. Its like this throughout the north. Abandoned communities left to rot. A real shame.
What's not to love affordable homes by the beach, No noisy Neighbor's perfection 😊
No neighbours one of the reasons I'm a van dweller, wake up to different views and save hell of a lot on bills that I only have to work 2 days
Drugs infested with totally unemployment!
ummm drug fuelled, window smashing youngsters?
Excellent report…sad so sad to see our area being left to rot!
I’m from Camborne/Redruth which had the last tin mine, within the next 20 years the house prices skyrocketed and it became a tourist trap near to Hayle/St Ives/Falmouth we didn’t cling too much on to the past but instead tried to look forward, some towns just couldn’t let go
Great video, i live in Peterlee the next town up from Horden, it's a shame to see Horden like that as in the 80's it was a thriving town with community spirit and now is just a sad ghost town.
Hey appreciate the comment. How is Peterlee for houses?
Great vlog, enjoy your choice and interests. My dad used to be a miner down in Staffordshire, hard times then. A lot of good and bad memories for most, but always a good community spirit which is now lost and gone forever! Thanks for this young man!!
Appreciate you watching cheers 👍👍
I live 25 miles from Horden in Seghill Northumberland another mining village .Most of the miners houses were knocked down in 1967 . When the pit closed in 1969 lots of people moved out of the village and others like my family were moved into council property. My Dad was moved from Seghill pit to Backworth then The Fenwick pit near Earsdon village and eventually ended his work days at the Bates pit in Blyth when he was made redundant in 1973. He had an accident in 1958 when there prop holding the roof of the Seghill mine fell on him he never worked down the mine again but was given a job on bank loading the coal from the coal trucks into a hopper which loaded the coal waggons. RIP SEGHILL PIT. We still hold a village Gala every year on the first Saturday of June .
Really interesting to see this. I grew up in County Durham, but left for uni in 93. My uncle, who was a miner, made sure I was aware of the term marra. So thanks to you marra for this insight in to a forgotten place
Good video, but for a Co. Durham lad not to have heard the term "Marra" is baffling.
It's a shame areas like this are ruined by drug use, break ins and antisocial behaviour. In theory it sounds nice to buy a couple together and do them up but you just know it wouldn't be a pleasant place to live due to the people around you :( And that means normal people won't move in, or will move out, and the area will get worse and worse.
Unfortunately, Maggie took away all the peoples self respect as she just closed down their work and basically their lively hoods overnight with no chance of getting work anywhere else in the area. What could they do, live on the dole or move to another part of the country in search of work and that wasn't easy. I myself was made redundant five times during her reign and I wasn't a miner and lived in Bristol. I know the Unions caused a lot of problems at the time, but she was not interested in alternative employment for these areas, especially in the North, just defeating the Unions at any cost. Believe me we are still seeing the fall out from her policies almost 50 years later.
@@minixtvbox Thatcher was over 35 years ago, where was Labour when they were in power from 1997 to 2009? Then Cameron and the successive lot. Just saying Thatcher while ignoring everyone since then, plus local politicians. That's over 35 years, and all of Durham is under Labour controlled Councils. What have they done for Durham and the North East? What did Blair and Gordon Brown do?
@@occiderisaethiopissa3702they further entrenched the moves Thatcher made mate, but it all began with Thatcher
@@occiderisaethiopissa3702 "What did blair and gordon brown do?"
Besides leave the country with the highest satisfaction rates for public services like the NHS? How quickly these things are forgotten.
Granted Labour didn't come up with a magical solution to fix Thatchers cack handed destructionism...but they didn't aggrivate the situation by closing down youth centres, and social services which the tories did under austerity!
My question is, when Tories have been in charge for 20 of the last 30 years and have done most of the worst damage, why are you so dead focused on labour who have served half that time and didn't actively make the situation worse?
Seems to me like you're trying hardder to justify something to yourself than anyone else.
As someone who works remote, its honestly tempting to move somewhere really cheap as an investment. The problem is, if I ever do lose my remote job thats going to be a stress
that's exactly what I was thinking! These cheap houses would be such a good solution for remote workers who want to own a home, but it also would depend on the security of their remote work.
The problem isn’t the location or the house. It’s the community (the youth) that destroys houses/glasses and door. Unless someone wants to risk their life, it’s doesn’t seem worth it.
17:22 Haha this got a good chuckle out of me, they stuck the fake door on upside down, with the windows on the pavement 😋
Very good.
Thanks for the video, brother.
So sad to see😰 I'm from Redcar and since the steel works closed in 2015 I've slowly been seeing more and more abandoned houses and shops. Hopefully it never gets as bad as this though
Very Sad and touching. I remember then 80s strikes, thriving mining communities here in Yorkshire. But C.Durham took a massive hit! 😢 TY for the video.
Thank you for watching 👍👍
Awesome video Wow, very impressive. I remember when I bought during the crisis a property for.$9k fed for 50% gain, thinking I was so smart and now with the same amount I could have bought Rolls-Royce and never thought in 1 million years that the market will go up so high
That's crazy, you actually looked at the back of one of the properties I used to live at 123 Seventh Street. It wasn't like that when I lived there, it was one of the few numbered streets to have mostly lived in houses. It must've been one of the last roads to fall, as I knew the others were bad. Insane how far it's dropped since I left.
Shocking! You don’t see this on UK media! It could be a lovely place if it was redeveloped!
Yeah it really could
It's deliberate, like a lot of things.
They called it Thatcherism...
I'm from yeovil in somerset... our town has just recently lost the leather factory which is what built this town originally, that is why our footie club are called the glovers..we do have helicopter tho which is only reason for the town to survive. Love your history insights thanks buddy
Live in Street (so not far from Yeovil) and the only thing really keeping the town alive is Clarks Village. Slowly seen more and more shops go from the main high street, ones that have been there for a long time (Puddys bakery) and slowly started being replaced with nail bars and barbers. I use to live in a small town in South London (just outside of Croydon) and I've seen this trend before which is worrying.
The more nail bars you see, the more the sign of a dying high street. I'm especially suspiscious of nail bars because the ones I walked past back then never had people inside of them and yet they somehow seemed to remain open, even though there was four within a 10 second walk of each other. The only thing I figured was that someone was using them for Money Laundering.
It also doesn't help that the recent council merger was done purely to bail out councils that were operating at a massive loss, meaning councils that were staying in the black (like Mendip council) are now having funds siphoned off to support councils which aren't.
Important work mate thanks
I'm from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. In The Cotswolds. Born and raised. Peterlee in County Durham was the first place in The North I visited after I sold my place in Cheltenham. Honestly. I thought I was in a different country, never mind a different town. I witnessed exactly what this video shows. A totally deprived town with street after street of borded up houses. I was aware of the history of these towns but I still wasn't prepared for what I saw. I've been to the North several times since. Each time I went I became ever more aware of The North/South divide. Such a shame. Especially seeing as the issue with burglary and vandalism only serves to make things worse.
I'm in Cheltenham and I felt the same visiting Durham and parts of Liverpool. Totally different atmosphere. It makes me think even the rough parts of Cheltenham are pretty!
@@EowynSoup I agree completely.
I hope the town finds itself a new purpose. Stunning coastline. Thanks for the tour.
I hope the same ! Thanks for watching
We chase drugos out of our small town in Aus. Nice old town full of old people to protect. As expats we are thinking of buying back home. Thanks for these vids.
Made me think of my heritage
Mining ⛏ on two sides of the family 2/3 generations back
If I lived there, I'd paint my doors and windows to look boarded up.. lol.
What a fantastic video, thank you for this. And what a pleasure to see a young man so passionate about his past and heritage yet also such great plans for his future too. A curious and enquiring mind, and a true Englishman your ancestors will be proud of you.
What a lovely comment to read after a long shift at work! Thank you for this 😀
Excellent, we really need good social/historic commentary, like this. Keep it up.
I grew up 10 miles from there in Sherburn Village, Co. Durham. So sad to see
You are a breath of fresh air, where do we buy up and set up a cash led community? AHH we can but dream. Don't forget to thumbs up and comment spread the word of this wandering wonder 👍👏
That young man , is a great production - I like the history side of our vlog and also the general style - This was our first watch of your stuff - we will watch more - thanks
Thank you for this! I really appreciate it 😀
I live over the other side of the a19 in Hutton Henry almost 4 years ive been here, amazing countryside, im originally from a very touristy city 60 miles south of here and im amazed that places like Horden and other small ex mining villages are just left to rot 😢
Good for you young man! You give me hope! I am a pensioner myself. Superb work.
why have successive governments abandoned the people of this country.? They really couldn't care less about anyone. Thanks for the video. I hope the area is regenerated and begins to thrive again
Thank for watching. It will be really interesting to go and see what this place looks like in 10 years…
@@wanderingturnip It will be the same, because governments do not care. Liverpool also has streets like this. Hartlepool also
There was me thinking some of the small towns that got swallowed up by Glasgow were bad. But don't think I have ever seen a township in such a bad way.
I had 2 friends that bought a couple of boarded up houses very cheap 20 years ago fixed them up but it took another 10 years for other houses and flats to be fixed, but the area is getting better now and more popular with younger families
My dad bought a couple of condemned properties back in the 90s for around £4000 with a bank loan rather than buy to let (Northern working class lad who got a reasonable job). They had to be sold for various reasons when he died suddenly. Nice to see them still there now valued at around £70,000. They are well built houses and it would have been waste knock them down.
Thank you for this video, you treat the people with respect. Another UA-camr has just made a video about Horden and he was so condescending about it
That old guy was quite solid from all those years down the mine. I hope they can revive that area somehow.
You wouldn't think there was a housing crisis if you saw this. This entire region could be regenerated and house so many people desperate for a nice little house.
Love your content. Keep it up. I really appreciate people bringing light to such issues as housing and how previous governments have neglected the country.
Breaks my heart man. I lived in Bowburn for a time, the whole village had a WMC and a co-op and they were the nicest people you could ever meet.
We can't even afford to shop at our local co-op now called Lakes and Dales owned by Scot Mid. A Scottish company. Cost an arm and a leg to shop there.
£80k and no viewing allowed! Now, that's a mystery box you wouldn't see on eBay!
Another brilliant video. Such a shame many streets, and not just in County Durham, are becoming abandoned now. The guy in the video, full of pride in life in the past, but you could also feel the sadness and hear it in his voice at times, with how times have changed.
Also, DRUGS... As the wife said, who would want to invest money on property that is basically trashed, if there is an issue with drugs in that area. I get drugs is an issue in a lot of towns, but in an abandoned street, it comes across a tad dicey and too risky to invest.
Days of Horror. That's exactly why esate agents and auction houses don't show views of the interiors. Because they know that if potential buyers could view these houses they'd immediatly be put off bidding. I've looked through listing after listing of properties in this area, but as soon as I see, "No internal photos or viewing", I move on, knowing full well that they are not habitable without considerable work, time and money being spent on them.
If you do up one property and both sides are derelict what value if drug users burn those sides and your house goes. Likely difficult to insure
I worked for a company selling properties about 7 ears ago.
These houses in these numbered streets made up the bulk of what we sold for 25k-30k a time.
Every last one of them went to private investors, none to homebuyers.
That is so interesting. Thank you for this, clarified what I already suspected 👍👍
@@wanderingturnip these houses were marketed at an easy 15% yield @ £400 p/m rental. But the sad truth was that most found it impossible to find decent tenants (or ANY tenants) due to the problems you mentioned on the video.
We saw people taking losses and putting the houses up for sale again. And I guess it's still happening, judging by the empty houses.
Figures looked good on paper, but in reality they were a liability.
So you are part of the problem then by association.
@@stevenhull5025 the problem with that area is deprivation and drug use.
Just a caveat: I bought my first house (2 bed end terrace) in a nearby town (starting with F) for £25k, in a similar area with void properties. I specifically chose an ex-housing association property due to minimum legal standards. I improved it and lived there for seven years until last year. Cheap, secure, solid housing. A few ASBO and Albanian weed growers, but those issues now gone. Not all buyers are professional landlords. Best thing I ever did to get a roof over my head for my own space.
So many lovely hidden areas with so much potential
My family were also miners from County Durham - lovely part of the country and it's sad to see how deprived and desolate a lot of the towns have become.
Just discovered your channel. What a great, if sad video. It brings it home to someone who was brought up in the South of England how much the heart was ripped out of these communities in the 1980s. Look forward to your videos now!😊
Appreciate you watching Richard cheers 👍
Rare to have communities down South now. No one knows their neighbours anymore and don't chat to each other 🙁
Thanks to the likes of people like Mr Scargill.
I could watch your channel all day…. It is sad that the town has become so lost & quite after the mining closed, but hopefully entrepreneurs like yourself will find away to bring life again ❤
I’m glad you enjoy the channel, thank you for watching 🙏
Love these documentaries. Really interesting.
I remember Horden in the 1960s, an old uncle of my dad lived there and we used to visit. It was a lively place and I remember how everyone cared for each other, I fell in the street once and was surrounded by people making sure I was OK. We don't have communites like this anymore and more is the pity, I would like to live in one! People in the pit houses were relatively well off - I'm pretty sure back then miners got free coal and there was always a fire burning in the house - my mother used to say they would make good stokers in hell because the house was always so hot and everyone laughed. I remember Mrs Craggs in the bakers and Mr Patterson in the butchers, it really was a community.
Thanks Wandering Turnip, you've brought back some good memories but it's tragic to see it now.
My first job was at Craggs bakers and my mate worked in the butchers mid 70's. You are right it was thriving community.