Priory Estate

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The Priory Estate is a housing estate in Dudley, West Midlands, England. Most of the buildings in the area were built during the 1930s.

1 History of the estate
2 Redevelopment plans
3 Crime on the Priory Estate
- 3.1 Significant roads on the Estate
- 3.2 Public transport links
4 References

[edit] History of the estate

The Priory Estate is so named because it is located near the Priory ruins and Priory Park. It stands on land which once straddled the border of Dudley County Borough and Sedgley Urban District Council. The borders were moved back several hundred yards in 1926 when Dudley Council purchased the land with a view to building council houses. The first house was occupied in 1930 and by the end of the decade more than 2,000 houses had been built on the Estate. There were also private houses for owner-occupiers built at the south side of the Estate near Priory Park. Three public houses served the Estate: the Wren's Nest in Priory Road, the King Arthur on the corner of Birmingham New Road, and the Caves in Wrens Hill Road.

Most of the people living in the council houses on the Priory Estate were rehoused from town centre slum clearances. They were generally pleased with living in new houses which had running water, electricity, indoor toilets, bathrooms and gardens.

But the Priory Estate quickly ran into problems, with vandalism, litter, graffiti, vehicle crime, burglary and drug dealing becoming widespread, particularly on the north side of the estate around Thornhill Road. The homes of elderly people were targeted most frequently; in 1991, a plank of wood was hurled through the window of a room in which a 90-year-old woman was sleeping.

The most famous former resident of the Priory Estate is Duncan Edwards, who grew up in Elm Road and went on to play 18 times for England as well as winning two Football League championships with Manchester United before he died in 1958 at the age of 21 from injuries sustained in the Munich air disaster.

[edit] Redevelopment plans

On March 2, 2006, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council unveiled plans for the future of the northern section of the Priory Estate around Thornhill Road, an area which consisted of 260 houses. The plan was to demolish between 100 and all of the properties and redevelop the area with new homes for private buyers and tenants. Some local people were very much in favour of these proposals, as they were becoming increasingly frustrated with the decaying condition of their homes as well as their unsuitability for disabled tenants, not to mention the anti-social behaviour problem which has plagued the area for decades. Others were determined to stay put, as they had lived in the area all their lives and enjoyed the community spirit. There were also fears among homeowners that they might not get the true market value for their properties.^[1]

[edit] Crime on the Priory Estate

In October 2003, arsonists set fire to a pigeon loft in the garden of a house in Linwood Road and killed nine pigeons.^[2] On another part of the estate, anti-social behaviour was creating so much trouble that one family gave an interview to the Express and Star regional newspaper openly criticising the local council for failing to respond to their demands for a transfer.^[3]

In March 2004, Dudley Registry Office (located in Priory Park) was set alight by arsonists. It took 100 firefighters a whole night to defeat the blaze.^[4]

Also in March 2004, a 90-year-old widow on the Estate criticised a judge for failing to hand out a prison sentence to the heroin addict and career criminal who broke into her house and stole £80 from her purse.^[5]

In April 2006, an arson attack caused severe damage to the Duncan Edwards public house in Priory Road. The pub had been refurbished just five years earlier and renamed in honour of Duncan Edwards.^[6] The building has yet to be repaired and its future is looking uncertain.