1,001 Abandoned houses - Studlands Estate. Oct 08

This report is completely different from anything else I’ve ever posted because…there is no dereliction, just abandonment.

Studlands Park in Newmarket is a massive estate, built primarily to house servicemen from near by US bases Lakenheath, Mildenhall, and Feltwell. The estate is huge. The houses of Nimbus Way alone are numbered continuously from 1-501. A recent newspaper article said claims there are just 11 families living on the estate. http://www.newmarketjournal.co.uk/news/Town-estate-could-have-300.4455174.jp

Map:


Driving down the main road there is an eerie feeling of emptiness. There should be cars. Today is rubbish day, the streets should be lined with blue and black wheelie bins:


What makes it odder is when I drove through here exactly one year ago, the streets were filled with ghoulish Halloween decorations. The yanks go mad for Halloween, but not here, not this year.


Houses in the 70’s were generally built with poor parking provision, as houses would own a single car. Not here, this was built with Americans in mind! With 3-4 spaces per household several thousand spaces sit empty.



You can see on the map some internal parking courts. These are useless for security as nothing overlooks them. I got up to court 15.


In the last week or so the letting agents have started to push to get people in.






More Car Parking, & Play parking

How strange......... maybe the yanks know something we don't!


That last photo reminds me of a scene from one of the Terminator movies, where Sarah is looking at the playground seconds before the big bang poor children


Pip

I'm surprised a housing association hasn't snapped them up. Up our way, the council would be making sure at least some were earmarked for afordable housing.

Pip said:

That last photo reminds me of a scene from one of the Terminator movies, where Sarah is looking at the playground seconds before the big bang...

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Yes, that's what I thought too! Eerie to see it all just empty like that.
'A COUNCIL is monitoring a Newmarket estate...' I bet!

Where are the zombies? Cool.

i'm moving in...anyone for coffee ?

As it's like a small province, with no seperate monarchy or government...
I bagsy "UrbanX, King of Studlands"

We could always turn the place into an enormous squat.......... hmmmmmm, or was that the title of a questionable dvd I recently watched


Pip

So is it just houses or are there community buildings such as shops/gym etc?

Just wondering, if the yanks have all pissed off, does that mean the air bases are open for explores?

Pip

Pip said:

Just wondering, if the yanks have all pissed off, does that mean the air bases are open for explores?

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Hmm...


There is a community centre in the middle of the estate which still opens! I believe there is a cafe and a shop on the other side.
It's adjacent to the industrial bit of Newmarket, i.e next to a Netto & Burger King. Even that estate is laid out in a US mall fashion with the road running parallell to the front, and direct parking, not like how you have to waltz you car into Tesco's these days.

In Madrid (just south) theres a new town of 13,000 new apartments designed for working class people who cant afford city prices, only 3000 have been sold, less than that are lived in because of the economic crisis here in spain.(its now known as the ghost town)
Ring any bells for the new so called 'eco towns' destined for the UK??

I expect the RAF will just leave them empty until somebody decides to sell them.

Our house is ex-RAF. It's in a group of about 50 at the end of a residential street near Leuchars. They were put on the market a few at a time by a local estate agent. I think ours was the second batch and the street was quite eerie when we moved in early last year.

I'm not sure how long our house lay empty but I've a feeling it was three years. During that time the gardens were kept tidy, new carpets and linoleum were fitted and new magnolia was applied to the walls.

The RAF seem to be dramatically reducing their housing stock for some reason, they are in the process of selling off the quarters in Leuchars now.

now thats bizzare all them homes lying empty

had I known that last night I'd of had a wonder round as I spent last night parked up in my wagon on the industrial estate with nothing to do

very eerrie, but strangly cool...I take it the neighbourhood watch group is temporarrily suspended!

thats pretty mad
we had one like that in leicester when they got put up for sale people camped out side to get the best houses

It's just crazy that a whole estate like this is just left standing empty, when there are so many homeless people, and people on low incomes who desparately need houses.

They're lovely houses as well.

Nice work,

Sal

mattdonut said:

thats pretty mad
we had one like that in leicester when they got put up for sale people camped out side to get the best houses

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They did the same with Devonport when the Naval base sold off its homes

When the yanks moved out of the warehouse in Burtonwood they left some really nice bungalows along came a developer pulled them down and built replacement housing