Latest news with #StocktonOnTees
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Life on the once respectable middle-class street now ravaged by crime and drugs... where house prices have plunged by SEVENTY PER CENT
It was once the jewel in Stockton-on-Tees' crown - an aspirational address where the well-heeled middle classes built their lives in proud red-brick Victorian homes. But today, Hartington Street stands as a haunting shadow of its former self and a sobering symbol of Britain's urban decline. Crippled by crime, ravaged by drug abuse, and hollowed out by absentee landlords, the street is now a grim patchwork of HMOs, halfway houses and temporary accommodation. Nowhere is that downfall more visible than at No. 15. Once a grand, three-storey family home, it sold for £300,000 in 2014. Just eight years later, it was snapped up for just £90,000 - a 70% drop in value. The property's windows and front door are now boarded up with metal sheets, paint peels from the crumbling sills, and vegetation grows through an upstairs window. The only tenants left are the pigeons roosting inside. This pattern repeats across the street. Of around 80 homes, the vast majority have been carved up into HMOs and let out by out-of-town landlords, often with little concern for upkeep or who moves in. House values have plummeted with properties that once commanded six-figure sums changing hands for as little as £55,000. Isma Choudhary, 58, whose 85-year-old mother Sagira has lived on Hartington Street for five decades, said the decline has been devastating for long-standing residents. She said: 'It's a shame. It used to be a beautiful road. 'My mum has lived here for 54 years, since she came from Kenya. It was the first house she ever bought. 'They're big houses and they'd get a good price if they were anywhere else. If this was London, it'd probably go for a million. 'But I can't imagine they're going for very much now and when the house does come to be sold, there's going to be a big loss. 'We keep trying to encourage my mum to move out of the area, into a better place, but she says no. 'She knows she'll never get a house this size anywhere else if she sells. She won't be able to afford it. 'Really, she should have sold up years ago.' Pointing to former family homes turned into HMOs, Ms Choudhary added: 'There's been a lot of change. There are only about four families down here now. 'A lot of people don't want to stay here anymore. Some of them have young kids and there are people outside using drugs. 'Next door was an Asian family who sold up about six months ago. That's empty at the moment. 'At No. 57, God knows how many people they've put in there. There must be 20-odd people in there. 'On an evening, there's ten cars and two vans parked up. I came home at half-eight last night and couldn't park anywhere near the house. 'Before, I could always park outside.' According to official sales data, boarded-up No. 15 had sold for £300,000 in 2014. But in 2021, it was listed for auction with a guide price of just £65,000 with sales blurb detailing its partial conversion 'with a view to providing 9 self-contained studios'. Its owners, based in Ayr, Scotland, secured the house for £90,000. A 1975 covenant on the house prohibiting actions that might 'lessen or depreciate' neighbouring property values appears to read with bitter irony. Dani Keith, 37, who lives on the street with her husband Tim, 38, and four children, knows a woman who grew up in the former family home. Ms Keith said: 'We actually went to church with a lady that lived here as a kid. 'She's in her 70s or 80s now. She's visited us and she'll walk up and down the street. 'She gets sad because the house means something to her. 'It's been like that for five years now.' Rightmove data, based on official government house sales logs, paints a bleak picture for Hartington Road. No. 28, a seven-bed house, was sold for £137,000 in 2007 - but plunged in price by 45% when it sold in October last year for £76,000. Eight-bed No. 16, sold for £125,000 in 2006. When it was purchased in 2023, its value had fallen 40% to £75,000. And a flat which sold for £51,000 in 2007 fell 22% to £39,000 when it was bought in 2022. Nadia Mahsood, 42, has lived on the street for 18 years with her husband, and admitted she was worried by falling property prices. She said: 'I want to move but I can't afford to.' 'Everybody's moved. My neighbour, who's my best friend, moved last year because it's a very rough, druggie area. 'There's lots of drug dealing in public. 'The property prices have gone down because it's a rough area. There are many flats here now. 'Many families have moved out. People don't like raising their families here but I have no choice.' Hartington Road has become a hotspot for crime and antisocial behaviour. According to police figures, 2,226 crimes were recorded in Stockton's town centre, in which the street lies, in six months to April. Web forums refer to it as 'vagabond street,' where 'residents are usually off their faces on drugs or booze, and that's at breakfast time'. 'Honestly, if they moved everyone out, the town centre would improve massively', one wrote. 'The amount of times I've been asked for booze money at 8am is ridiculous.' One resident, who gave his name only as Stephen, told Mail Online that he paid £475 a month to live in a ground-floor room, with a tiny kitchenette and WC. He said: 'The houses round here used to be worth a fortune but because of the street, no-one wants to live here. It's one of the worst places to live. 'There's a lot of druggies and smack heads. It's better than watching TV sometimes. There's always something going on. 'There's a Christian family from America living on here, with four kids. 'I asked them, 'why the hell are you living down here? It's a horrible place'. 'And they said 'God made us do it'. 'If God asked me to live down here, I would tell him where to go. 'I was living in a tent before I lived here. Then I ended up in this s***hole. 'But if I'd known what it was like I would have stayed in the tent. 'The police are up and down here like yo-yos.' Nearby, the family referenced by Stephen told how their missionary work had taken them from North Colorado to Teesside, where they live in a six-bed house bought for just £82,000. Tim Keith, a team leader with Global Mission Europe, said: 'The investment we've made here in buying the house is less about finance and more in a belief for better things for this community. 'It's a different community but it is a community with its own rhythm and rules. 'Doorbells don't get used. There's a lot of shouting, which takes some getting used to. 'I've worked around this estate and from this location for three years, so my sense of what 'bad' is a little different. 'You reach a point where you can see the beauty of the place and don't see the rubbish that has blended in.' Mr Keith added: 'We lived in a community called Denver, North Carolina. 'Of the top 30 earners of NASCAR, 20 of them had houses within 10 miles of ours. Donald Trump had a home on the lake nearby. 'It was a very different community. But I actually feel more comfortable here in this community.' The rise in HMOs has led to concerns from Cleveland Police. The force recently objected to retrospective planning application for a nine bedsit property, describing it as a 'modern day doss-house'. Crime prevention officer Gerry McBride said of the plan for no. 25: 'It appears to be an attempt by the developer to squeeze as many people into a building as possible. 'The lack of en-suite facilities for the occupants will result in this operating as a modern day doss-house. There is already a high incidence of HMOs in the nearby area, with which, comes a transient community, bringing with it a host of local additional demands for police and partners.' Leanne Dixon, 37, moved from the east Yorkshire coast to Hartington Road last year when a house came up for rent suitable for her seven children. After securing the property sight unseen, she discovered the remnants of a cannabis farm in her attic which had been connected across four neighbouring homes. Leanne said: 'People told us not to move here - they said it was full of druggies and alcoholics. 'But honestly, we've had no problems. We don't mind it at all. 'It's not easy finding somewhere big enough and affordable. You can't rent these kinds of houses anymore unless you've got a million quid. They just don't exist.' Ms Dixon pays £1,500 per month to rent the property, which initially had been advertised for let as a HMO by a Hong Kong-based landlord. She said: 'There aren't many families on the street. It's a shame because the houses are big and more suitable for families. 'When we first moved in last August, every five seconds you could hear sirens going, but now it's just become background noise. 'You just get used to it.'
The Sun
4 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
I had no idea my son, 19, was an addict before the unthinkable happened… I dropped him at uni & he came back in a coffin
HEARING a familiar ping, mum Jo Forsdyke picks up her son's phone and sees a text which sends a dagger through her heart. Less than a year ago her 19-old-old son Josh had tragically died after leaping from London Bridge into the River Thames. 8 8 8 His mum, dad Alex and two brothers then faced an agonising four day wait before his body was recovered. At the time Jo, a service manager at an IT company from Stockton-on-Tees, had no idea her talented, artistic middle son was using the class B drug ketamine while studying in London. It was something she only discovered after his death in August last year. Ten months on, his phone is still receiving sickening text messages from callous dealers. Shocking new figures from NHS clinics reveal last year 3,609 people in England were treated for ketamine addiction, eight times more than a decade earlier. One charity in Lancashire is helping children as young as 11 who are hooked on the illegal substance. Up and down the country, streets are so awash with the cheap drug that users 'can't get away from it'. Some addicts report that ketamine, which is also called kitkat and special K, is being sold for as little as £3 a gram in Manchester. It is also prevalent at our universities. Mum Jo tells The Sun: 'I was completely ignorant about it, and maybe we're not sophisticated, but we just didn't have a clue about what drugs were out there and how accepted they are and how widely available they are - and how cheap they are.' Parents who have found their children caught up in the ketamine crisis gripping Britain want to warn others about what is going on. Mother-of-three Julie, from Burnley, Lancs, didn't understand why her once athletic 13-year-old daughter was going missing for days on end, throwing "anything she could get her hands on' and being excluded from school until she ended up in accident and emergency. Finally, in terrible pain, her daughter confessed that she was addicted to ketamine. One in ten 15 year-olds have been offered ketamine, and doctors are treating people as young as 16 with severe bladder symptoms due to prolonged use of the drug which leaves addicts incontinent. At least 55 people in Britain died from the habit in 2023 and a quarter of 16-to 24-year-olds have tried it. 'Not himself' 8 8 8 Jo, 50, says her son Josh, a talented artist, had 'changed' after leaving the North East to study at the University of the Arts London in September 2023. She recalls: 'We saw changes in Josh when we went on holiday to France last July. There was a big group of us. "He was very strange, erratic. He just wasn't himself.' Jo thought this was just because he'd gone away to uni, but then on August 26 last year he took a lethal cocktail of ketamine, the prescription painkiller tramadol and alcohol. She recalls: 'He'd only just turned 19, on the 4th of August, and then he jumped from the London Bridge. He was still a kid, you know. 'He drowned and his body wasn't found for four days. It was an absolute nightmare.' Josh left his mobile phone behind, which revealed how addicted he was to ketamine. She claims she found "shopping lists" of drugs available to students where he was living. Jo explains: 'There were pictures of boxes of ketamine being bagged up in the halls of residence. 'There's still messages on his phone. It still lights up with drug dealer messages. "I think that they just send them out to everyone, but they're still coming through.' Josh's grandmother Annie Llewellyn previously told how their family is devastated, with her daughter Jo remarking she had "dropped Joshua at the university in September 2023 and he came back in a coffin in September 2024". Easy access At the inquest into his death Melanie Sarah Lee, Assistant Coroner of Inner North London, was critical of the easy access to drugs at the halls of residence. She wrote: "I heard evidence that ketamine was easily and openly available to students as it was being dealt from and/or by persons with access to, and moved between, student halls of residence. "In my opinion, action should be taken to prevent future deaths.' The coroner, sitting at St Pancras Coroner's Court in January, concluded that Josh "took his own life whilst his judgement was impaired due to drugs and alcohol". Josh's only mental health issues were anxiety, and Jo fears that he might have taken ketamine because he was wrongly told it would help. She continues: 'I just think he thought that ketamine would just help, but they've got no idea what they're dealing with.' Jo isn't blaming the university or anyone else for Josh's death. She is speaking out to encourage other parents to look out for the warning signs. Jo concludes: 'If one person thinks when their child is acting a bit strangely, just to start a conversation about it, even if it just helps one family, that's all I care about.' 8 8 'Horrendous' For Julie, 49, who we are not fully identifying to protect her now 15-year-old child, problems started much earlier, but the pattern is familiar. Her daughter was involved in 'athletics, dance, drama, horse riding' prior to her behaviour changing in secondary school. Julie recalls: 'Looking back now the signs were all the times she was not cooperating with anything, not wanting to get out of bed, and then when she did get out of bed she was wanting money and out the door and then we couldn't trace her. 'Sometimes she'd go missing when she couldn't get money or she had a phone taken away so she had no contacts to get anything. 'The rage, the smashing the house up, it was horrendous. 'Throwing glasses, plates, cups, anything she could get her hands on, smashing doors. It was really destructive and violent.' The rage, the smashing the house up, it was horrendous. Throwing glasses, plates, cups, anything she could get her hands on, smashing doors. It was really destructive and violent Julie, mum The bad behaviour also led to her daughter being suspended by her school. But often it is other pupils who are dealing drugs. Father Alex Frost, 55, who is campaigning to protect Burnley against ketamine, says that pupils are being expelled from schools for selling the banned substance. Julie had no idea that pupils had such easy access to them. Who would think that 13-year-olds are taking ketamine? Only when she took her daughter to the pharmacy last August to find medicine for stomach pain did the truth come out. The pharmacist said Julie's daughter needed to go to the hospital and it was there that the girl admitted she had been hooked on the drug for 10 months. Julie says: 'I think the hospital staff scared her and it put reality into it. Because of the pain she was suffering, what it was doing to her. 'We were really lucky in the sense that she herself decided that's it. 'Unfortunately some of the kids that she was involved with are still doing it and much worse.' The devastating impact of ketamine Ketamine can lead to death by putting pressure on the heart and respiratory system. But its other effects on the body, which are often irreversible, are horrifying, too. 'Ketamine bladder syndrome is one of the worst symptoms,' Dr Catherine Carney, an addiction specialist at Delamere, told Sun Health. This is where the breakdown of ketamine in the body causes inflammation in the bladder wall. It leaves people unable to hold urine and passing chunks of their bladder tissue. Some users face the prospect of having their bladders removed entirely. Dr Carney explains: 'The lining of the bladder can shrink over time and be extremely painful for those experiencing it. 'This can often lead to lower abdominal pain and pain when passing urine, as well as bleeding. 'It's usually what has forced people to get help because they can't tolerate it any more. 'We've had young men in agony, wetting the bed. 'Their whole life is focused on where there's a toilet because they can only hold urine for ten minutes. 'For a teenager or someone in their early 20s, that's absolutely life-changing. 'In some cases, the bladder damage progresses to the kidneys and people get kidney failure, too. 'This is developing in people who have been using for two years, so it is relatively quick.' Dr Carney adds that the urine samples of new guests checking into the clinic are often just a 'pot of blood'. This is followed by weeks of agony coming off the drug. An irony of ketamine use is people tend to take more and more to numb the pain of the side-effects it causes. Dr Carney says: 'There's nothing that we can give which is as strong as a medical anaesthetic (the ketamine). We can use codeine-based products or anti-inflammatories. 'Some antidepressants help at night, but the pain is hard to manage in the early days. 'Most people that come to us, the bladder will improve to the point that they don't need to have it removed. 'But once you've got a bladder that has shrunk to the size of 70ml, that's never getting better.' Ketamine is a difficult habit to kick and her daughter still has the 'urge' to take it, despite knowing the harm it can do. A common side effect is 'k-cramps' - and because ketamine is an anaesthetic, users take more of it to numb the pain it is causing. Many parents have told The Sun how their children died from the habit, with the drug destroying their bodies. Ketamine is currently a class B drug like cannabis. Julie thinks it should be a class A drug on the same level as cocaine. The long term damage to their health will put a huge strain on the NHS. It's a juggernaut coming down the mountain Father Frost Father Frost, from St Matthew's CofE Church, Burnley, agrees. He concludes: 'Ketamine is affecting all communities. I have heard that older people are using it in rural villages, retired people. 'It is in our schools, but our children aren't getting signposted by GPs to detox or rehab, which is what they need. 'The long term damage to their health will put a huge strain on the NHS. It's a juggernaut coming down the mountain.' The 'heroin of a generation' Party drug ketamine has been dubbed the 'heroin' of a generation as users warn its true toll has yet to be fully seen. The potent painkiller and sedative has become a hugely popular street drug due to its hallucinogenic and relaxing effects. But for some, a party habit can spiral into a devastating addiction. Exeter University researchers who interviewed 274 ketamine addicts warn the drug causes 'high levels of physical health problems and psychological consequences'. They estimated that nearly half – 44 per cent – of British users suffering devastating side effects from ketamine do not get professional help. Sixty per cent had bladder or nasal problems, while 56 per cent suffered from organ cramps. Six in 10 interviewees had mental health problems and reported psychological issues including cravings, low mood, anxiety and irritability. One anonymous ketamine user in the study said: 'I feel it is the heroin of a generation. 'More information will only become available once more people my age begin to suffer so greatly from misuse that it can't be hidden anymore.' Another added: 'People know the risks of heroin and cocaine but not how addictive ketamine can become.'
BBC News
09-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Job losses at Totally as urgent NHS call firm collapses
A healthcare firm, which provided urgent care services in NHS 111 call centres, has gone into administration with the loss of 100 which employed 1,400 people across several sites in the UK, including Stockton-on-Tees and Newcastle, said workers had lost their jobs across the group but did not confirm how many had been affected at each company has been sold to PHL Group, another healthcare provider to the NHS - with the immediate transfer of 600 of its Vance, joint administrator at EY-Parthenon, said he was pleased that hundreds of jobs and "critical frontline NHS services" had been safeguarded by the sale. Derby-based Totally had been struggling since losing the NHS 111 support contract in February. Mr Vance said: "We are pleased to have agreed the sale of Totally plc which safeguards critical frontline NHS services and includes the retention of over 600 jobs." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
06-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
WW2 air raid shelter found under Stockton school playground
A hidden World War Two air raid shelter has been rediscovered under a school workers were carrying out refurbishment work at Oxbridge Lane Primary in Stockton-on-Tees when they found a strange concrete manager Jason Harrison described excavating and uncovering the distinctive arch shape before realising it was a Lauren Amerigo said it was an "incredible discovery" that had fascinated the children, some of whom had been studying the era at the same time the shelter was revealing itself. Mr Harrison said: "This is the first time I've found anything like this. We didn't know it was there."We were getting ready to connect some pipework and we uncovered the concrete top. "As we excavated down a bit we could see that it was a sort of bell shape." The bunker is approximately 24ft long and had partially flooded with water which has since been Harrison believes it is a Stanton Air Raid Shelter which were mass-produced by the Stanton Ironworks Company near architect will inspect the structure before a decision is made about what to do with it. 'Hide under table' The discovery has thrilled Year Six students, including 11-year-old Skyler who said: "It was exciting to learn we had an air raid shelter under the playground, but I wasn't very surprised. "Our school is quite old, but I didn't expect it to be so well-preserved."It looks just like one of the shelters we saw when we visited Eden Camp Museum. "My great-nana and great-grandad were alive during the war, but they didn't have a shelter, they used to hide under the kitchen table."We learned that boys and girls would often have separate shelters and I think it might be the boys' one because there is an old sign on a wall nearby that says 'Boys'."Mr Harrison and school staff agree and suspect there may be a second shelter hidden somewhere under the Amerigo said: "This has been an incredible discovery that brings history to life right beneath our feet. The children are absolutely fascinated."It's been a powerful reminder of the lives lived here before us and we're excited to explore how we can use the shelter's history to support our pupils' learning." Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
BBC News
02-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Jodey Whiting: New inquest opens into Stockton benefits mum's death
A new inquest into the death of disabled mum of nine, who took her own life after her benefits were stopped, has heard she was ''shocked, distressed and desperate''.Jodey Whiting, from Stockton-on-Tees, who had numerous physical and mental health issues, was found dead in 2017, two weeks after being denied Employment Support Allowance (ESA) because she had been deemed fit to 42-year-old's mother, Joy Dove, has spent years campaigning for a fresh hearing after the original lasted 37 minutes and did not include information from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).Ms Dove, 71, said as a result of the DWP's decision, her daughter "lost hope". The inquest in Middlesbrough continues. In 2016, Ms Whiting missed a benefits assessment after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia, the inquest heard, which was followed by doctors finding a cyst on her was only after being finally discharged that a letter from the DWP was found among the unopened mail at her flat asking why she had not attended a recent medical assessment.A subsequent letter then arrived telling her she was "fit to work". Giving evidence at Teesside Coroner's Court, Ms Dove said she could see a change in her daughter from that moment said: "Jodey said, 'I can't breathe, I can't walk, I can't walk out of the door. What am I going to do?'''She lost hope, she worried she wouldn't be able to pay her bills and have nothing to live on."In the letters she left for her children following her death, Ms Whiting wrote: "I've had enough, I want peace." The coroner at the original inquest in May 2017 recorded a verdict of Independent Case Examiner (ICE) concluded in 2019 there had been a number of serious failings in the DWP's handling of Ms Whiting's the end of her evidence, Ms Dove said: ''It was the DWP that caused it. There's no way it was anything other."A representative from the DWP is due to give evidence at the inquest, which is expected to last three days. If you have been affected by any issues in this report, help and support is available on the BBC Action Line. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
