A once-thriving community is now an urban wasteland branded UK’s own ‘Chernobyl’ where just a handful of people remain.
House-hunters can snap up a one-bedroomed flat can be picked up for just £7,000 in the dilapidated 430-flat estate of Clune Park in Port Glasgow, Scotland. An imaginary pub and chip shop have been painted on a wall to stop the place looking quite so depressing.
Urban explorer Backpacker Ben visited the eerie ghost-town, which Stephen McCabe, leader of Inverclyde Council, described as reminding him of “somewhere like Chernobyl.”
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Ben explained: “About 25 years ago, everyone left and it’s been abandoned ever since. Now it looks like Chernobyl, but apparently four people still live here.”
(Image: Kyle Urbex WS)
Clune Park was developed in 1905 to house the families of men who worked in Glasgow’s shipyards. But today, almost all of the buildings stand empty – some looking as if the occupants have just walked out and left all their belongings behind.
He said: “Everywhere you look, it’s like a nuclear bomb or something has gone off. Everyone has fled and it’s just been like this ever since.”
In 2022, around 20 people were reportedly still living in Clune Park but today, according to Ben, only four of them still remain. There’s little for them to do, with no shops or any other facilities.
(Image: Katielee Arrowsmith / SWNS)
According to the local council, Clune Park estate has the highest level of below tolerable standard (BTS) housing in Inverclyde, with most properties being listed as not fit for human habitation.
Ben recalled a previous trip when he visited a run-down area of Sunderland, and pointed out the “North Korea-style” fake foods and windows painted on boarded-up properties to make the place seem a little less depressing.
It’s the same in Port Glasgow, he said. “They’ve got fake shops to make it look better; fish and chips, The Fudgy Cafe, tobacco stores, a butcher’s,” Ben explained. There’s even a fake pub called the Black Bull, but there are no pints being pulled behind its gaily-painted façade.
(Image: Katielee Arrowsmith / SWNS)
It’s a complete ghost town with “everything smashed in, boarded up, and left to rot here for the past 25 or 30 years”.
One flat in the estate was sold at auction in 2020 for just £6,000. It’s not clear what the buyer ever actually moved in. The majority of the properties are quite small, with 69 bedsits, 310 one-bedroom flats and 51 two-bedroom flats.
Talks about demolishing the development have rumbled on for years, with private landlords unwilling to sell up and blocking Inverclyde Council’s bid to raze the site and start again.
(Image: Katielee Arrowsmith / SWNS)
A spokesperson for Inverclyde Council said: “It remains our ambition to acquire properties at Clune Park to allow for the delivery of long term regeneration of the area.
“While progress has been frustratingly slow and costly, the ambition still remains and discussions are continuing to achieve this aim at the earliest possible opportunity.”
In the meantime, Clune Park estate becomes less habitable by the day, with crumbling masonry, broken windows and smashed toilets leaving the once-proud little estate looking like a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
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