There was a housing estate on the Wolverhampton/Walsall border which featured regularly in our local newspaper, where all the houses had been demolished apart from just one pair of semis, due to the fact that the owner of the one half for years refused to move out, meaning the council (legally?) couldn't demolish it, leaving his the only occupied building in a vast swathe of derelict land. I'm not sure what happened in the end but the area is now filled with new housing.

2009 (approaching said house):













How the estate looks today, from roughly the same view points:







The house with the reflection of the car in the window is exactly where the remaining semis once stood.

I think I prefer how it used to look.

Look at that grabby pavement parking even though there are no neighbours to compete with any more, or indeed any houses for them to live in.

What that person must have suffered, with horrible kids riding noisy off-road motorbikes on the derelict land, and vagrants trying to break into the next door house to kip in it. And yet I bet I still thought they were winning.

When the A14 north of Cambridge was upgraded, the old 'services' there were replaced. But not removed...



I've put services in quotes because I can't remember if they had an amenities building in those days. But it was at least up to 'rest area' standards.

One of the roads that leads up to where Norfolk Park flats used to be. It's slowly reverting to the moorland it once was.

If you drive up it on Streetview, it gets more and more derelict as you go along.




The current Streetview images are from way back in 2008, as you can't drive up it anymore, thanks to the council blocking it at both ends with boulders.



Nice pot holes.

The boulders at the top end are arranged much more neatly.

It's amazing just how quickly nature reclaims these places. I've known when tower blocks get demolished, within months the place where those 16 floors once stood can be a green meadow again.

The famous banked section of the abandoned-since-1939 Brooklands race track!






Now bordering a Tesco superstore, and spliced up by roads, retail parks, trading estates and housing estates.

Tellytubby Hill in Catbrain

https://goo.gl/maps/qjDJQEJgvq4ZMmTp6

This lovely house near Lichfield, shown in 2011....







...is now abandoned, boarded up and awaiting HS2 to plow straight through it.






I see it from the back on my route between the Midlands and Yorkshire and have wanted to locate it for some time.

I get the feeling this old farmhouse on the other side of the A38 might be in trouble too. It looks empty, though not boarded up, and has all kinds of earthworks, machinery, portakabins and new service roads going on nearby.

HS2 had better be the best train ride ever when it's finished, cos it's really spoiling everything.

Interesting to see how much of an old-school dual carriageway that part of the A38 is - 2 lanes, not even a half-width hard shoulder, just a white line and the kerb.

Fangirl Three wrote:

HS2 had better be the best train ride ever when it's finished, cos it's really spoiling everything.

Interesting to see how much of an old-school dual carriageway that part of the A38 is - 2 lanes, not even a half-width hard shoulder, just a white line and the kerb.

That part of the A38 feels old fashioned to drive on too and a little unsafe at motorway speeds, feeling quite narrow when overtaking lorries, and cars suddenly burst on from obscured and short sliproads giving you little warning and often no lane to overtake in when in heavy traffic, causing sudden and dangerous braking. The road surface is also quite rough and there is at least one "yee haw!" moment when going at 70mph over a little humpback bridge - the sort you feel in your stomach! I can imagine the crash statistics would be quite high on this road and it desperately needs some modern upgrading.

Some people even have their driveways straight onto this 70mph dual carriageway!

All the marks of a classic old style dual carriageway.

I bet there are lots of places where you used to be able to turn right, but can't any more.

Butterfield wrote:

This lovely house near Lichfield, shown in 2011....







...is now abandoned, boarded up and awaiting HS2 to plow straight through it.






I see it from the back on my route between the Midlands and Yorkshire and have wanted to locate it for some time.

I think this house is gone now. The last two times I've driven past I've looked for it but it doesn't seem to be there anymore.