2-359-321 - Worldwide Photography/Heritage-Images

Housing project, Mexborough, South Yorkshire, 1962. This housing development in Kirby Street in the South Yorkshire town of Mexborough is a good example of the failed 1960s housing ethos. The ugly concrete façades soon looked dated and shabby. By the 1990s few people wanted to live in these council owned boxes and family tenants were gradually moved out to be replaced by the more troublesome tenants on the council register. The flats became a centre for drug dealing and were gradually vacated and boarded up before being demolished in 2008. The neatly maintained Victorian terraced houses which surrounded the property are still standing and remain an enduring feature of the former mining town.