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The Coronation estate was designed and built in the early 1950's to meet the chronic housing shortage following World War II. The first houses were occupied in 1953 and the estate was named to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Many of the streets took their names from the cities visited during the Coronation tour of the Commonwealth. Many of the early houses and maisonettes were of the pre cast reinforced concrete (PRC) type of construction to hasten the building process and were owned by the local authority, the then Borough Council of Weston-super-Mare, later to become the District Council of Woodspring which has now become the Unitary Authority of North Somerset. Throughout the 1950's further houses and maisonettes were built although by then they were of the more traditional bricks and mortar construction. The estate extended over the Cross Rhyne and on into the Western end of Oldmixon where shops and a church were added, there is also a school now occupied by the Weston College and used as a Sixth Form Centre. The Church, St.Barnabas, was completed in 1958 and was designed as a "multi functional" building and is not only a place of worship but is used as a centre for many community activities. In addition to the Sixth Form College, the estate is close to other schools, Windwhistle Junior on the neighbouring Bournville Estate and Broadoak Community School just a five minute walk towards the seafront, which itself can be reached by foot across the Weston Golf Course. During the 1990's many of the PRC homes still owned by the local authority had fallen prey to "concrete cancer", all of the "Cornish" type maisonettes consequently underwent major refurbishment whilst the "Reema" type houses were totally demolished and replaced with traditional brick built houses and bungalows. The "Reema" project took almost 5 years to complete during which time almost 100 homes were demolished and rebuilt. During this time the Coronation Tenants' Association was formed although it's name was changed a year later to the Coronation Residents' Association to reflect the number of homes now in occupier ownership due to the success of the "Right-to Buy" scheme. By 2000, with all of the building works complete, membership of the association had fallen dramatically. In 1996 the estate and several neighbouring ones i.e.. Bournville, Oldmixon and Potteries were awarded Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) status and monies became available from government and business sources to invest in improving the "quality of life " The Coronation estate was slow to respond and would not commit itself to accepting the offer of having it's own community centre, although several local groups including playgroups and after school clubs were helped with SRB funding. The area around the shops received a facelift and several Neighbourhood Watch (NW) schemes were set up with the help of SRB funding. It was primarily due to the lack of an active residents' association and the desire to make good use of remaining SRB funding that the NW coordinators formed the Coronation Local Action Team in the early part of 2001.
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