News

Housing plan which proposed sprawling Divis project was 'disaster waiting to happen'

A housing master plan, entitled `The Model of Cullingtree Road/Grosvenor Road Redevelopment Area', proposed seven huge tower blocks sitting amongst numerous blocks of flats in a sprawling Divis estate
A housing master plan, entitled `The Model of Cullingtree Road/Grosvenor Road Redevelopment Area', proposed seven huge tower blocks sitting amongst numerous blocks of flats in a sprawling Divis estate A housing master plan, entitled `The Model of Cullingtree Road/Grosvenor Road Redevelopment Area', proposed seven huge tower blocks sitting amongst numerous blocks of flats in a sprawling Divis estate

A NEWLY unearthed housing masterplan had proposed stretching the Divis Flats complex as far up the Falls Road to its junction with the Grosvenor - with plans to include seven tower blocks in the development.

The ambitious plans for the re-development of the lower Falls area in the late 1960s emerged in archives released by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.

An image for the proposed re-development shows how planners had envisaged creating a huge Divis development stretching along the Falls Road to its junction with Grosvenor Road.

The map shows how the housing model would have included seven huge tower blocks sitting amongst numerous blocks of flats.

It was also planned to enclose the entire development with a ring road, which would have encircled the massive housing project, in effect, isolating it and its householders from the rest of the city.

According to an Annual Report of the Northern Ireland Housing Trust dated from sixties, the plan, entitled 'Model of Cullingtree Road/Grosvenor Road Redevelopment Area' , had been developed as there were 10,000 people on the housing waiting list with a further 5,000 joining each year.

In addition, the first stage of the Westlink project was said to have displaced at least 500 families and further development meant the loss of further housing meaning more people in need of homes.

In the end, it is thought financial concerns may have meant the proposed model did not proceed with only a fraction being built.

Built in the mid-sixties, the Divis Complex, in the end, consisted of Divis Tower and 12 eight-storey terraces and flats, which were all named after the nearby Divis Mountain.

However, problems with the flats soon manifested themselves when householders found they had to live in a compressed space with the only recreational space available on a dangerous balcony.

Soon, lifts were breaking down continually and rubbish was being dumped from high rise windows.

A lack of play space for children led to a break-out of anti-social behaviour and with the arrival of the Troubles, the complex soon became worse than the slum-like homes the householders had left behind.

After only a few years, there were calls for the flats, once described as the worst of its kind in Europe by a European Union report, to be demolished.

Political historian Dr Éamon Phoenix described the archived plan as a "disaster waiting to happen".

"This was the lower Falls and Divis. This was the ancient heartland of the Catholic community in Belfast," he said.

"You had this thriving community. You were aware that the area was a fossil of another age and this was the swinging sixties, modernisation was the name of the game.

"By local politicians and local churchmen, people were told this was going to be high quality living and they would have commanding views of the city and they would have modern lifts and of course, there was the whole idea you would have safe pedestrian areas for kids, playgrounds, community centres, safe access to local schools.

Dr Phoenix said the proposed model "wasn't going to work".

"Looking at the area, you can see the limited quality of life with all the problems - lack of privacy, lack of recreation, problems in terms of access, anti-social activity," he said.

"It's clear from the Stormont government in the early seventies, they saw roads as a security strategy which would isolate what were considered to be hard republican and loyalist areas.

"There's a hint of that in this plan. It fitted in with what became the Stormont security plan later".

He added: "This is something, even without the Troubles, wasn't going to work.

"It was a dream, a pipe-dream and it turned to dust very quickly. By the seventies, the flats were already seen as something people wanted to remove.

"It's obvious the model was reduced. It probably was financial. They probably didn't need such a grand plan".

Divis Timeline

Mid 1960s - The Divis Complex comprising Divis Tower and 12 eight-storey blocks of terraces and flats is built

1969 - The arrival of the Troubles sees the complex become a flashpoint for violence

August 14, 1969 - Patrick Rooney, nine, the first child killed in the Troubles, killed by a tracer bullet fired by the RUC into family's flat in Divis Tower

August 15, 1969 - Catholic soldier, Hugh McCabe, who was on leave from being stationed in Germany, shot and killed by the RUC near his family home at Whitehall Row in the flats' complex

April 1972 - Schoolboy Francis Rowntree (11) killed when struck by a rubber bullet while walking through flats

December 1972 - widow and mother-of-10 Jean McConville abducted from her home in Divis Flats and murdered by IRA

Late 1970s - the British Army take control of the top of Divis Tower and build an observation post on the roof

September 1982 - Stephen Bennett (11), Kevin Valliday (11) and British soldier, Kevin Waller (20) killed when an INLA bomb explodes in a walkway in the complex

Late 1980s - Following a public outcry demolition of Divis Flats gets underway

1994 - All the flats are demolished with only Divis Tower remaining

In August 2005 - British government announce that the observation post at the top of Divis Tower was to be dismantled

June 2007 - The Housing Executive announces it is to spend £850,000 converting the top two floors of Divis Tower block back into homes