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High Rise Damp is a short documentary looking at the experiences of Jenni and her son Dylan, two residents of the Crosley Wood flats — three concrete tower blocks situated adjacent to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Bingley.

This film emerges in response to community development work undertaken at Crosley Wood by Shipley’s Kirkgate Centre, and supported by Multi-Story Water. The film focuses on the story of just one family on the estate, and uses water as a connecting thread, looking at the family’s pro-active response to the Boxing Day floods of 2015, their feelings about the canal, and — most importantly — at the their housing conditions. Plagued by damp and internal floods, the family has been at the mercy of a housing authority — Incommunities — which has shown little concern for their plight. Unfortunately, their story is just one of many like it.

The 15-minute film was shot in late summer of 2016 and premiered in a public screening at Kirkgate Centre’s AGM on Saturday 19th Novermber.

In 2017, after further public screenings, we were able to secure a meeting with the Chief Executive of Incommunities, Geraldine Howley OBE, which is discussed in detail here.

Our huge thanks to Jenni and Dylan for making this film with us.

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Directed by Steve Bottoms           Edited by Tom Blagden

With personal thanks to Trevor Roberts, Paul Barrett, Lyze Dudley, Sarah Hattam.

Acoustic Meditation 2 by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)  Artist: http://audionautix.com/