The area saw a significant amount of urban clearance during the 1970s, resulting in the loss of residential streets including Holton Street, Rawlinson Street, Russell Street, Swainbank Street, Laurel Street and many parts of Waterloo Road, Springfield Road and Brunswick Street, which became fragmented as infill housing such as Russell Court and Brittania Walk. The Gerald Court sheltered housing complex, now itself demolished and the replacement Burnley Wood School, now Springfield Primary School were built on the sites of demolished properties at the northern end of Hirst Street and the northern end of Waterloo Road respectively, and most of the mills ultimately closed and were given over to other industrial and commercial uses. However, in around the mid 1990s, Burnley Wood and its proliferation of predominantly lower grade two bedroom terraced houses began to suffered from housing market failure. It became part of East Lancashire's Elevate scheme to clear, rebuild or remodel what were considered to be an over supply of sub-standard housing. The catalyst for this was the 2001 Burnley Riots which brought the problems of Burnley Wood to national attention.