Greater Manchester's ghost estate where every home lies empty

The gardens are overgrown, there's rubbish piled in the street and the windows are tinned up.

On the wall of a derelict bungalow the word PRIDE! is graffitied in neon pink block capitals. It's an emotion that's in short supply now on Highfield Close in Stretford.

But that wasn't always the case. The 38 one-bed houses on the cul-de-sac off Chester Road were built in 1947.

READ MORE: The 'forgotten' Mancs who got their own new estate - in the middle of the countryside

And for many years the small council estate was home to a close-knit community of pensioners. They included Michael Keogh, 81, who moved into number 46 Highfield Close, at the bottom right hand side of the street, in 1997.

"When I first moved I thought it had real potential," he said. "The back garden was incredible.

"There were lots of trees and views over the fields. I spent quite a, lot of money building a little courtyard and planting, so I had a nice place to sit out.

"It was such a nice community."

But around eight years ago the residents began hearing rumours that their then landlord Trafford Housing Trust was proposing to demolish around half-a-dozen homes. In fact, as they later found out, the plan was to flatten all of them.

The trust said the bungalows were on a 'high risk' flood plain and were built in a way that had 'created severe damp and mould issues' - claims some of the residents disputed. The plan, they said, was to rehome the tenants and replace the bungalows with 'new high-quality homes'.

Soon the pensioners began moving out. But a hardcore refused to budge.

Among them was 72-year-old Lynda Mawdsley. "They're not taking my bloody home away from me, over my dead body," she told the Manchester Evening News in 2022.

"When they said they