Friar Park (Wednesbury)

Friar Park is an area of Wednesbury, Staffordshire England.

Originally in the borough of West Bromwich, it was developed by West Bromwich council in the late 1920s and early 1930s to rehouse families from town centre slum clearances. It is situated approximately one mile to the east of the town centre and since the 1960s has stood in the shadow of the M6 motorway.

When the borough of West Bromwich was expanded in 1966 to include the former urban district of Wednesbury, Friar Park was placed within the boundaries of the Wednesbury township and has remained part of it ever since, while an opposite reorganization took place in neighbouring Hateley Heath.

There have been some more recent additions to the estate, including Carisbrooke House multi storey council flats that were built in the 1960s on the north-east of the estate. However, these flats were demolished in 2001 in a controlled explosion, one of many tower blocks in the West Midlands which have been demolished since the 1980s. Several low rise blocks of flats which were built in the 1960s were also demolished around the same time as Carisbrooke House, although over the years the council has decided to modernise the older houses which form the nucleus of the estate rather than opting for demolition.

Joseph Edward Cox Infant and Junior Schools were built on the estate to serve 5-11 year olds, initially in temporary buildings before a permanent junior school opened in 1934 and an infant school in 1936. The schools have been completely rebuilt since the beginning of the 21st century and the name changed to The Priory Primary School.

A tragedy struck the estate on 21 December 1977 when a house at 36 School Road caught fire. The fire took place while firefighters were on strike, and the Auxiliary Fire Service had to deal with the emergency call. The occupant of the house, 31-year-old Mrs Maureen Brazier, managed to escape the fire, but her four children Denise (aged 12), Suzanne (aged 10), Lisa (aged 6) and Tony (aged 4) were trapped inside and burnt to death. Mrs Brazier was rehoused at another council property nearby, where she lived until her death 35 years later, and the house was demolished, leaving a gap in the middle of the terrace where it once stood.

Friar Park has traditionally had high unemployment compared to most of the rest of the local area. The first major economic blow to hit Friar Park came in 1980, when the nearby Patent Shaft steelworks closed. Many other local factories were closed around the same time. At the time of the 2001 census, it was reported that 9.9% of the area's residents were unemployed - well above the national average and slightly above the average for Sandwell. It has risen considerably since then due to the recession which began in 2008.

Crime rates in the Friar Park area are very high, with anti-social behaviour, drug abuse, burglary and violent crime being particularly widespread. The Coronation public house was the scene of much crime on the estate until its closure and demolition in the 1990s. A Lidl supermarket now stands on the site. Some of the estate's shops in Carrington Road were demolished in 2010 after standing empty since the 1990s.

Joyriding was also a major problem in the 1980s and 1990s, but has since fallen, with traffic calming measures on Carrington Road having contributed to a fall in speed-related accidents.