Bentilee is a

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States ...

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

, Staffordshire, England, between

Hanley Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. Hanley is the ''de facto'' city centre, having long been the ...

and Longton, and parallel with Fenton.

History

Built in the 1950s, Bentilee was at that time one of the largest estates in Europe, with around 4,500 properties. The streets in the area are named after various places in the UK e.g. ''Winchester'' Avenue, ''Chelmsford'' Drive, and ''Devonshire'' Square. Originally, it consisted almost wholly of social housing, managed by Stoke City Council. The

Right to Buy The Right to Buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland since 1 August 2016 and Wales from 26 January 2019, which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a large ...

brought in by the Conservative government of the 1980s led to many of the semi-detached houses that make up most of the housing stock in the area being bought by their tenants, so that now approximately 25% of local houses are privately owned. In the 1990s, the estate's 925 cottage flats were transferred to the management of Bentilee Community Housing Limited (now called EPIC), under the Estates Action scheme that provided government funding to bring the properties up to a modern standard with many receiving new kitchens, new bathrooms, central heating, double-glazing, and rewiring.

Recent developments

In recent history, the estate has also been the subject of a 7-year-long Villages Initiative Single Regeneration Budget (Round 2)

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

scheme that aimed to do for the remaining council housing what the Estates Action scheme had done for the cottage flats (but without transferring ownership away from the Council), as well as tackling local social issues and full- or part-funding a wide range of local projects such as Berryhill Retirement Village, the Millennium Project on the

Berryhill Fields Berryhill Fields is an area of grassland in the heart of Stoke-on-Trent in England, between the housing estates of Bentilee Bentilee is a housing estate in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, between Hanley and Longton, and parallel with ...

that separate Bentilee from Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, and building the Moss Green housing estate (managed by Riverside Housing). Seven years was not long enough to complete the ambitious plans for the redevelopment of the estate's main shopping and services area so the Bentilee District Centre Project was set up to carry on this work. The final result is a single building comprising shopping facilities, local library, IT Centre, walk-in health centre, and the CAB — unique in the UK. In 2013 Discovery Academy was built on the site of the former Willfield Centre. Discovery Academy replaced Mitchell High School in Bucknall and Edensor High School in Longton. This high school is now a part of the Alpha Academy Trust, along with Excel Academy in

, Maple Court Primary School and another primary school.

References

External links

Brookhouse & Ubberley Forum Web siteChanging Places Web siteBentilee Community Housing LimitedEmpowering People Inspiring Communities (EPIC) LtdStoke-on-Trent City Council Web siteRiverside Housing Company
{{Stoke-on-Trent Areas of Stoke-on-Trent