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Revision as of 05:42, 10 February 2005 by Tabletop (talk | contribs) (delete stub)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Darlaston is a town in Walsall in the West Midlands of England.
The town grew in the nineteenth century around the nut, bolt and gun lock manufacturing and coal mining industries. But most of the town's industries had closed by the end of the 1980's and the town is now a ghost town, with an increasing high level of unemployment.
Many Victorian terraced houses were demolished during the second half of the 20th century, and the Urban District Council of Darlaston built thousands of houses and flats to replace them with. Since 1966, Darlaston has been part of the Walsall borough and is now in the WS10 postal district which also included neighbouring Wednesbury.
Bentley Old Hall stood in the north of Darlaston until the early 20th century. Its grounds were redeveloped as a housing estate in the 1950's.
Mining subsidence, which has taken its toll on many buildings across central England, has also made its mark in Darlaston. In 1999, a council house on the New Moxley housing estate collapsed down a disused mineshaft while its occupants were on holiday. The adjoining house also had to be knocked down. Since then, the council owned housing stock in Darlaston has broken away from Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council and is now controlled by Darlaston Housing Trust. In 2001, two of the town's four multi-storey blocks of flats were demolished, and the remaining two followed suit in 2004.
A council estate of 120 homes in the Moxley area of Darlaston was earmarked for demolition at the beginning of 2002 owing to mining subsidence. The Darlaston Housing Trust had opted for demolition because it would have cost almost as much money to make the homes safe than it would to redevelop the area. Only around 10% of the homes on the estate are still occupied, and demolition has already started on those already vacant. One of the remaining residents in the area, an owner occupier, is still refusing to leave his property until an adequate offer is made -this even made the local news. The man claimed that his property could have been sold for in excess of £80,000 just a few streets away, yet the developers had offered him just £25,000 to move.
The athlete Mark Lewis-Francis was born at Darlaston in 1981.
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