Old new towns

Ornament in a house in Skem

West Lancashire’s Skelmersdale (clipped to ‘Skem’ by locals) was designated a new town in the early 1960s. With its green spaces, schools and new estates, it was sold as an attractive option to council tenants living in cramped blocks in nearby Liverpool.

Skem’s fortunes have been mixed. Regeneration and sustainable housing concepts for low income earners require ongoing investment, commitment and imagination. Problems on all three fronts aren’t exactly news.

By the 1980s, Skem was losing on investment and political commitment: in 1985, just 20 years after it was launched, the Skelmersdale development corporation was wound up. New town corporations had been financed by the government, and responsible for town development and maintenance. Each corporation had loans to buy land and establish town facilities.

When the corporations closed, assets like housing and services like maintenance and estate management passed to local councils – where investment, commitment and imaginative development are a lot harder to come by.

Thus we have Skem – a postwar socialist concept adrift in a Tory borough. Poverty is an issue for some Skem locals: fury at their own powerlessness is another.

We spent some time in Skem recently, talking to the locals. The stories start below.