Raffles or the Raffles Estate is a

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. The estate consists mainly of

council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

built and

Housing association In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, Non-profit organization, non-profit organisations that provide low-cost "Public housing in the United Kingdom, social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surpl ...

properties, and in 1994 had a population of 5,800. Nearby areas include Belle Vue, Newtown, Sandsfield Park and Morton West.

History

Raffles was built during the 1920s and 1930s and was highly sought after as a place to live by council tenants of the time. By 1994 the area had deteriorated; a report published in ''

The Independent on Sunday ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'' in April 1994 condemned the estate as a no-go area with a high level of crime. One resident was reported to have said "If you've got a problem in Raffles, get yourself a shotgun". By the first decade of the 21st century the housing estate had undergone significant redevelopment and modernisation. The £9 million redevelopment plan got underway in 2004 and saw many of the original council properties demolished and replaced with new housing stock. This was completed in three stages, the last building phase being finished in 2009. In 2010 Carlisle Police discovered a large amount of

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...

at a house on the estate, described as one of the largest to be found in the area in recent years.

Notable residents

Helen Grant, the current MP for Maidstone and Malling and the Conservative Party's first black female MP. grew up on the estate. Author Margaret Forster (1938–2016) was born there.''The Guardian'': Margaret Forster, award-winning author, dies at 77
(accessed 8 February 2016)

References

External links

Areas of Carlisle, Cumbria {{Cumbria-geo-stub