Allermuir Court visit

Around the end of January 2006, Mrs Anne Barratt from Edinburgh council's housing department very kindly took the time to let me visit Allermuir Court. It is one of three tower blocks on the Oxgangs estate earmarked for demolition. The area in which the blocks sit is going through a £10m regeneration scheme. At the time of my visit there wer only 3 flats remaining occupied (a 3rd floor flat, an 8th floor flat and a 12th floor flat) and I was extremely lucky to go on this visit at all as the week after I visited the block was closed off to the public to allow stripping to commence.

When the tower blocks were built in 1962 they were one of the first high-rise housing schemes to be built in edinburgh. They were built as part of a slum clearance and offered new modern luxury flats and maisonettes with outstanding views of the Pentland hills and Edinburgh castle to families and young couples who had previously been living in old rundown tenements.
Some of the tenents felt like they were living in america as they had never before seen a skyscraper. Shug, the concierge at the Oxgangs flats told me that the flats were once so classy that new tenants had to have a certain income before they were allowed a flat.
To the newly housed tenents it seemed like a dream come true but unfortunately it was about to become far from that. After 10 years or so, life in the blocks started going downhill, good tenants were moving on and high-rise living had been severly stamped with a bad name due to the partial collapse of west London tower block 'Ronan Point' in 1968 after a small kitchen gas explosion on the 18th floor.

Also, the structural quality of the buildings were coming into question. Tenants started to complain of dampness, crumbling plasterwork and difficulties heating their homes (However, Shug told me that dampness only really became a problem when dodgy double-glazing was fitted to all flats in 1990).
People from rough, drug ridden backgrounds began moving in the flats and that kicked off the area's drug problem. A sharp rise in anti-social behaviour
began swarming around the blocks and the Oxgangs estate began to get a bad name.
However, the community spirit in the area and throughout the whole estate still existed (and still does so to this day).

Eventually, after years of high-rise hell, a group of tenants got together and decided to organise a meeting with the council to discuss what would be done about the severe damp and heating problems which haunted the flats. Many tenants were absolutely outraged when the council told them that nothing could be done for at least ten years!
So in protest to this the tenants began to campaign to have their homes torn down and replaced with nice new habitable housing. This went on for two years and eventually in 2003 the tenants were granted with £10million by the Scottish Executive to regenerate the area.

At 12:00pm on April 17th 2005, Capelaw Court came crashing to the ground with the use of contolled explosives. 43 years of history reduced to rubble in just 3 seconds!

Currently, new low-rise housing is being built on the former site of Capelaw Court. Caerketton Court is now edging completion of stripping and Allermuir Court was cleared of its last 3 tenants at the start of February and is now being stripped out. The blocks are due to bid an explosive fairwell in November of this year.


Pictures from my visit:

The two towers


Views of adjacent Caerketton Court (from the 14th floor)


Views down of low-rise flats and houses (from the 14th floor)


The former site of Capelaw Court, new houses being built


View down the block from kitchen window of 14th floor flat


Poorly lit 14th floor corridor

Graffiti on door


Allermuir C u r