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.

In the autumn of 2018, Jenni’s family and other residents at Crosley Wood were finally rehoused by Incommunities, prior to demolition of the flats. Only the year before, we had been told that there were no plans for this to happen…

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/