A retired bank worker is the last person living on 'Britain's loneliest street' which is all due to be knocked down - but he's refusing to move.
Nick Wisniewski, 66, has no neighbours living beside him in 128 flats after the last of around 200 residents moved out in December.
The eight blocks of flats and other homes on Stanhope Place are all scheduled for demolition.But Nick refuses to leave - despite the council's attempts to buy him out.
Nick Wisniewski, 66, has no neighbours living beside him in 128 flats after the last of around 200 residents moved out in December.
The eight blocks of flats and other homes on Stanhope Place are all scheduled for demolition.But Nick refuses to leave - despite the council's attempts to buy him out.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Gowthrapple.
00:02My name is Mike Besmiskis.
00:04I've stayed here in Stanhope Place for 21 years.
00:08There used to be about 200 families
00:10stayed in this street.
00:12Now I'm the last one.
00:14It's certainly a ghost town.
00:26I had a newsletter
00:28through the door a few weeks ago
00:30about out here
00:32and it basically said that
00:36in July they would be
00:38doing the roads.
00:40In August you would see
00:42foundations being started
00:44and actually in September
00:46you'll see houses starting to be built.
00:48Whether the council
00:50is going to offer me one of them
00:52I don't know.
00:54But that is
00:56how it's going at the moment.
01:06When I moved in here
01:0821 years ago
01:10this place was
01:12a nightmare.
01:14It was all horrible purple
01:16painted and horrible.
01:20The place
01:22wasn't full at that time.
01:24It was basically druggies and junkies
01:26that stayed here.
01:28There were just a few in the block
01:30and
01:32when the right
01:34to buy was due to
01:36complete a few years ago
01:38I decided rather than pay rent
01:40it would be beneficial
01:42for me to
01:44buy the flat.
01:46Once the few
01:48druggies
01:50and junkies moved out years ago
01:52the block was filled up
01:54with Polish people
01:56and it was fine.
01:58Everybody spoke to you.
02:16The council
02:18I said that guy
02:20phoned me a year past November
02:22it all started for them
02:24emailing me telling me
02:26you're going to need to move out
02:28we're going to start demolishing in
02:30April. April last
02:32year we're going to start demolishing
02:34which would total lies
02:36you're going to be the only person left there
02:38and
02:40I would speak to
02:42other people in the block and say
02:44have you been told you have to get out?
02:46They'd say no, nobody said anything to us
02:48but they had said it to me
02:50and that went on for months and months
02:52and gradually, eventually
02:54you seen
02:56an odd person moving out
02:58only an odd person
03:00it took a long time for them to
03:02gradually get one to one, get people out
03:04of the different blocks
03:06but as I say I think
03:08with a lot of them, I don't mean this badly
03:10but ones that didn't work
03:12the incentive there giving them
03:14two and a half thousand to move out
03:16great
03:18getting a lot of money to them
03:20and
03:22slowly and gradually
03:24they all started to move out
03:38It's hard
03:40to think but that actually
03:42you were struggling to get a car
03:44parked out there
03:46that's how busy it was, how full it was
03:48with all the Polish people
03:50everybody, some of them had two cars
03:54and look at it now
03:58It's a shame in a sense
04:00quite honestly
04:02they say
04:04it's progress
04:06I don't know that it is