Ardenlea St

Ardenlea St – Dalmarnock

Dalmarnock in the East End of Glasgow is where the majority of the Commonwealth Games construction projects will take place. Much of Dalmarnock is a ghost town and the people of the area, young and old, have high expectations. The young people I spoke with are eager for the promised new employment opportunities. The old folk in the Dalmarnock Community Centre were just thankful that something positive was planned for the area after years of neglect. But behind the headlines and the PR of the Commonwealth Games, one woman is fighting eviction from her home on the very site where the athlete’s village is to be built.

Margaret Jaconelli purchased her home in 1976 and has now lived alone on Ardenlea St in Dalmarnock for the past 5 years.  All the other residents in the street have been re-housed but as Margaret was one of the few people in the area who actually purchased her home she is not entitled to be re-housed and she and her family are the last remaining residents on a condemned street.  With the Commonwealth Games approaching, the council are in a rush to demolish the whole street as it is occupying the site where the Athletes Village is to be built. Margaret is refusing to move until they offer her adequate compensation so she can purchase a new home. To date the council have only offered her an 80% ownership of a house in Cranhill – an area outside the East End. Margaret (and everyone else in Dalmarnock) knows what plots of land are now worth in the area and although she is not demanding huge compensation, she is wanting a fair payment that will allow her to move on.

Since first meeting her and documenting Margaret’s story in April 2008, she still remains in the same state of limbo. Her health has suffered dramatically and from November 2009 she has been ring fenced in as land preparations for the construction of the Athletes Village begins. Determined to the end, she has fought a long drawn out one woman battle against a council equally determined to transform Dalmarnock and to remove her from her home.   Local councillor George Redmond states that “It is in no-one’s interest that Margaret and her family remain there, especially after all this time. I am sympathetic to a point, but this is a larger issue. The local area needs certainty so that the games can take place and Ardenlea Street needs to be demolished. For the greater good of the area someone needs to take it on the chin.”
As Winter 2010 approaches, Margaret is not looking forward to another winter in the flat. “For the past five winters my heating bills have been sky high, I am effectively heating the whole tenement,” Jaconelli says, but she remains defiant. “I’m not budging. If the council don’t give me the proper compensation that I deserve then I won’t be moving anywhere. I will sit right here till 2014 and watch the Commonwealth Games from my window.”