Community – Dalmarnock Eviction

Hope, memories, loss & community : Dalmarnock (Margaret Jaconelli) from chris leslie on Vimeo.

Mixing still photography, video reportage and interviews, this film follows the story of Margaret Jaconelli from March 2008 through to her eviction in March 2011

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 fought 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 lived alone on Ardenlea St in Dalmarnock since 2003. All the other residents in the street were re-housed but as Margaret was one of the few people in the area who actually purchased her home she was not entitled to be re-housed and she and her family were the last remaining residents on a condemned street. With the Commonwealth Games approaching, the council were in a rush to demolish the whole street as it is occupying the site where the Athletes Village is to be built. Margaret is refuses to move until they offer her adequate compensation so she can purchase a new home. The council offer her an 80% ownership of a house in Cranhill – an area outside the East End or the district valuers valuation of £29,000. Margaret (and everyone else in Dalmarnock) knows what plots of land are now worth in the area and although she is not demanding a huge compensation, she is wanting a fair payment that will allow her to move on.

I first meet Margaret and began documenting her story in April 2008. As the months pass her health suffers 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.”

Winter 2010 – 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.”

Gallery

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March 2011 – the Eviction

The eviction was supposed to happen last Thursday but it seemed the police were busy with another eviction in the West End of the city to deal ‘effectively’ with Margarets eviction. For days the media has hung around Ardenlea St waiting on an eviction that sometimes felt might not actually happen. The most excitement and most photographed event was when someone entered or left through the front window. But this morning, after a eight year long battle with Glasgow City Council, Margaret Jaconelli and her family were finally evicted from their home in an early morning dawn raid by over 120 policeman (I gave up counting at 85).

I was there at 4.45am and already the whole area had been cordened off by the police – it must have been their easiest eviction they thought as there were no neighbours or others to consider. But it took them over 2.5 hours to finally enter the property and Jack and Margaret then left, heads held high to cheers from their family and supporters. It was a high adrenalin packed morning but by 8am it was all over the family were evicted. The end of story? Not according to Margaret, who will continue to fight Glasgow City Council via the European Court of Human Rights….it seems her struggle for justice will continue, but her home and campaign headquarters are now demolished.