Blackley
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Blackley (Pronounced blake-ley (/'bleɪklɪ/)) is a district of Manchester, approximately 3 miles north of the City Centre. It contains the large municipal parks of Heaton Park and Boggart Hole Clough (148 hectares, 365 acres).
In the middle of the 17th century, Blackley - a hamlet mentioned in the Domesday Book - was a village of just 107 inhabitants. Today the area is home to more than 50,000 residents.
Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Blæclēah = "dark wood" or "dark clearing".
Blackley is well served in terms of green space and parks with significant open spaces such as Tweedale Common, Irk Valley, Blackley Forest and Nutbank Common as well as Heaton Park and Boggart Hole Clough. Heaton Park, at 259 hectares (641 acres), comprises 25% of the city's total green space. It is sometimes claimed to be one of Europe's largest, though it is considerably less than half of the size of parks such as Phoenix Park in Dublin, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, Sutton Park in Birmingham and Richmond Park in London.
It was also an industrial centre of international status. Here is found Avecia, successor to Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and AstraZeneca. It was in the ICI laboratories that not only dyestuffs but also medical breakthroughs such as the anti-malarial drug Paludrine and Antrycide to combat African sleeping sickness were discovered. The area is currently being redeveloped with modern housing for the 21st century.
Blackley also contains three primary schools, two secondary schools, a range of nursery and childcare provision, an adult education centre, two doctors' surgeries and a NHS clinic, a youth and community centre, library and police station.
[edit] Local Politics
Labour first won this seat during their landslide victory of 1945, only to lose it again in 1951 when Churchill triumphantly led the Conservatives back to power. The next time Labour wrestled the seat from the Tories was in 1964 when the party again formed a new government. Since then, Blackley has ceased to be a weather vane seat which swings with the country and instead has stayed with Labour in every subsequent election.
The seat lies in the north of Manchester and borders the suburbs of Prestwich (in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury) to the west and Moston, Chadderton and Failsworth (in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham) to the east. Alkrington (in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale) borders to the north and the Manchester district of Harpurhey borders to the south. It is mainly a residential area of declining suburbs, with deprivation particularly noticeable to the north of the seat. . The current MP is Graham Stringer (Labour).
