Lord Mayor sees bright Prospects for old haunt

AREA NOW FAR CRY FROM PLACE WHERE FEUDING FAMILIES ONCE FOUGHT

-  WILLIAM TELFORD

PLYMOUTH'S Lord Mayor Tina Tuohy has praised the £130m regeneration of North Prospect and said it is a far cry from when "feuding families from Stonehouse" caused Saturday night "chaos" on the estate. The 89-year-old is a city councillor for Ham and moved to North Prospect nearly half a century ago.

Cllr Tuohy has a wealth of knowledge about North Prospect from living and working in the area once notorious as Swilly, as well as through connections made via her North Prospect History Project and her career as an archaeologist.

She said the area was originally created to house returning "heroes" after the First World War - and to rehouse tenants after slum-clearance in Stonehouse and Devonport.

She said: "After people had seen the homes and moved over, they used to call it 'paradise at 12 shillings a week. She added: "I was told that in the 1920s and 1930s it was blissful; everyone moved in very happily and lived here for 12 shillings a week."

But she said: "Things started going a bit difficult after the Second World War, when Plymouth was blitzed and people were desperate to be housed. People were housed in North Prospect, and they were all put there with no questioning about their backgrounds. The families that were feuding in Stonehouse for a number of years then found themselves living on the same street. I was told by one of the history group members that Saturday nights used to be total chaos."

Cllr Tuohy moved to Plymouth in 1970, and got married and raised her family after getting a home in North Prospect in 1978. She became a mature student at University of Exeter in 1987 and gained a PhD in archaeology.