Six monastic houses, founded in the 11th and 12th centuries, had large interests in the area's economic growth. They acquired the rectorial tithes of all its larger parishes, fn. Coal and iron industries on a large scale, however, grew up only from the mid 17th century.
The mid 18th-century transformation of local industry by technological and business enterprise was a development of national importance. By the area boasted Britain's second largest ironworks. Some small towns grew up, but municipal institutions were acquired slowly or not at all. Prosperity ebbed away from the southern end of the coalfield after the mid 19th century and, after some recovery in the s and s, the whole area was seriously affected by a national recession, which deepened from the later s.
The area had no administrative unity before ; even Telford new town's smaller predecessor, Dawley new town 3, ha. Although Telford included the most important industrial area of Shropshire within its boundaries, its constituent towns and villages were, and long had been, remarkably diverse.
Oakengates had grown from virtually nothing in the mid 19th century to a small, densely built town by when, by a federation of four adjoining civil parishes, it acquired municipal institutions. Madeley parish, containing the town of Ironbridge, was a ward of the borough of Wenlock until Dawley, the central part of Telford, contained the greatest concentration of the area's most derelict and impoverished parts: old basic industries were in decline, leaving a ravaged landscape, fn.
Symptomatic of the long neglect of the area was the late provision of secondary schools in Dawley, where measures taken to remedy social and intellectual impoverishment in the s included the government-aided establishment of nursery classes. It was to provide resources for rehabilitating the area, and also to contribute to the working-out of regional planning policies in the west Midlands, that Dawley new town was designated in ; in it was extended north and renamed Telford.
Post-war hopes of containing the growth of Birmingham fn. Both designations were commitments to develop the economic and social self-sufficiency characteristic of a new town, but the Conservatives' failure to make use of the New Towns Act fn. In the harsher economic climate of the later s Redditch's proximity to Birmingham conferred the advantages of a satellite town fn.
In the event successive changes in planning strategy, not least because of their timing, had profound effects upon Telford. In Dawley new town was intended to take 50, people from the conurbation and so to grow to a town of 70, or more. By Telford was intended to take an additional 50, and grow to a town of , or more by By , however, Telford's population was just under ,, and it was generally thought that it might not reach , by the time of the development corporation's demise, expected in the late s.
Thus the effects of immigration were offset by a fall in the national birth rate and by a national economic recession, which deepened throughout the s and beyond. In the mid s, when those changes began fn. Even before the change of strategy, and certainly for long after, other government departments accorded Telford low priority.
Job creation there was hampered by inflexible policies at the Board of Trade later the Department of Trade and Industry , while the minister of Transport's original undertaking to improve road communications with the conurbation fn.
Settlement and Woodland : Woodland is indicated form sources cited in the notes and form surviving old woodland.
Economic Geology : the ancient metamorphic rocks around the wrekin and leaton, quarried for road ston, are not shown. Mining Royalties : productive royalties but not others are distinguisuished, expect for an area in eastern stirchley, owned by the duke of cleveland and several freehoders.
The rehousing of Birmingham people in Dawley urban district began in the late s with assistance from the city of Birmingham under the Town Development Act, fn. Bowdler, fn. Meanwhile, however, Birmingham's ruling Labour group, which had proclaimed that Birmingham's people and industry had 'a right to remain in the city', had seen the apparently final defeat of its plans for expansion on the city's southern edge.
At the same time the Conservative government was realizing that procedure under the Act was too slow. Accordingly when the minister of Housing and Local Government rejected Birmingham's expansion plan in April , he immediately offered help in working out new overspill arrangements; reports on Dawley were called for in the summer, and in November the minister announced the possibility of a new town there. In the Midlands New Towns Society also suggested a new town at Dawley, and the minister commissioned the Birmingham city architect fn.
Dawley new town was designated in January Some 41 per cent 1, ha. From the outset the government accepted the principle of bearing the additional costs of building a new town on reclaimed land, thus reducing, as the minister of Agriculture emphasized, the need to take agricultural land.
They were only partly successful, fn. Other early development around Madeley, however, was on low-grade agricultural land, fn. A master plan for Dawley, prepared by John H. Under the town's first, and only, chief architect-planner, Ceri Griffiths , the applicability of Gordon Cullen's theoretical new town 'Alcan' was urged. Residential areas, in which pedestrian and vehicle routes were to be separate, fn.
Nevertheless much new housing was planned south of the loop, around Madeley, and some east of it, north and south of Nedge Farm in Shifnal parish. New residential areas inside the western arm of the loop were to be grafted on existing settlements at Dawley Bank, Dawley, and Little Dawley. Inside the eastern arm of the loop, in Stirchley parish, there were no old settlements of any size. Industry was to be located outside the loop, on land unaffected by instability.
The natural beauty and historic importance of the Severn Gorge area were recognized as high-quality amenities, and a nearby site between Lincoln Hill and Roughpark Farm was reserved for a proposed university. The development corporation intended to fulfil the plan by building first along the new town's eastern edge. Until its new sewage works at Gitchfield in Broseley came into use new building had to use the borough of Wenlock's works south of Cuckoo Oak. Accordingly the first industrial estate was laid out at Tweedale, where the first factory was occupied in the autumn of , fn.
Barely was the Dawley plan published, however, when, later in , the Department of Economic Affairs fn. The future relationship between Wellington and Oakengates on the one hand and Dawley new town on the other was not defined fn. At the ministry's behest Dawley development corporation produced a Continuity Plan, published April , to enable the building of the southern part of the new town to proceed, though restricted to Madeley, while the ministry's consultants, the John Madin Design Group, prepared proposals for the development of Dawley, Wellington, and Oakengates.
Reconsideration of the new town evoked scepticism among government officials about its economic prospects and Treasury arguments for its cancellation. Though much essential construction work had been put in hand in the early years, in Dawley was publicly criticized for slow progress by Crossman's successor Anthony Greenwood, apparently heedless of the government's prevarication over the improvement of road communications and of the uncertainty caused by his own ministry's brake on development.
In Greenwood determined to 'strengthen' the corporation by appointing a new and 'very energetic' chairman, fn. Woodside estate was accordingly built west of Madeley at an earlier stage and on a larger scale than had been planned, and the old centre of Madeley was replanned and altered very rapidly.
The people of Dawley felt that the heart of the new town was being neglected and denied much-needed capital investment.
Repercussions were felt in the economic as well as the planning sphere. In the later s, while the government considered proposals for the new town's enlargement, developments were delayed not only in the old Dawley area but also in Wellington and Oakengates. That had not been foreseen. The planning of Dawley in the early s had assumed the continuance of virtually full male employment and considerable local rises in female employment and, especially in the new town centre, service employment.
It also assumed that manufacturing firms from expanding and mobile sectors of the regional economy would be attracted: added to the area's more basic heavy industry they would help to create an industrially balanced new town. Nevertheless in spite of high unemployment in the s the east Shropshire Coalbrookdale coalfield had prospered in the s and s.
Employment in the vehicle components industry, in the manufacture of engineering and electrical goods, and in metal and clothing manufactures had increased. That was due partly to the prosperity of the British car industry fn.
The new jobs, amounting to 28 per cent of the new town's 4, industrial jobs in , were mainly women's; and it is noteworthy that the large pool of female labour available in the area, the result of the long preponderance of heavy industry, probably continued to help the new town to attract firms from the conurbation. The new town depended on its northern neighbours, especially Wellington, for services and service employment and was economically united with them.
The Dawley plan had aimed to make the new town economically independent, fn. In the s and s, however, the established industries of the Telford area began to fail. Its last two collieries closed in and At Priorslee Shropshire's last blast furnace was blown out in and its last rolling mill closed in The Lilleshall Co. As economic growth slowed, ambivalent policies at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government contributed to the evaporation of Birmingham's interest in the new town.
As has been seen, the city's initial enthusiasm for Dawley had coincided with what seemed to be the final defeat of the ruling Labour group's plans for peripheral expansion. Even, however, as his ministry was insisting on Dawley's expansion as part of the Regional Study's strategy, fn.
He authorized building at Water Orton Warws. The basis was thus laid for Birmingham's spectacular house-building programme of the later s, fn. Bowen, the Dawley deputy chairman, fn. The crisis in industry and employment notwithstanding, indeed as perhaps the only conceivable way of retrieving the situation in the long term, the government expanded the new town's area in December to include Wellington and Oakengates. Between Telford's designation and the publication of its Basic Plan in fn.
Nevertheless much the weightiest influence on the new town's economy was the inflexible regional policy of the Board of Trade from the Department of Trade and Industry in issuing industrial development certificates I. Even there I. Between and , however, the conurbation had exported , jobs, , of them outside the region, and by the later s, contrary to the assumptions made during the planning of the new town, there was not enough mobile industry to fulfil plans for the new towns in addition to those for the assisted areas.
As the national recession worsened, moreover, Black Country towns were increasingly anxious, and in terms of zoned industrial land increasingly able, to keep their industries. In the opinion of many the Department of Trade and Industry's policy made Telford the most disadvantaged new town. The new towns in Wales and the north of England were in assisted areas; on the other side of the conurbation Redditch's designation had had the Board of Trade's blessing from the outset while Milton Keynes designated , Peterborough , and Northampton , though not in the West Midlands region, were allowed to recruit industry from the whole of it.
With the sole exception of Telford, the new towns outside the assisted areas lay east or south of Birmingham and benefited from proximity to, or easy communications with, London. During the crisis of the late s an unprecedented application for intermediate assisted area status for Telford failed, fn.
Anthony Greenwood, with the corporation's chairman Price and officials, met Gwyneth Dunwoody, parliamentary secretary to the Board: Telford was agreed to be 'on the sick list', and an unofficial 'concordat' allowed Telford to recruit industry throughout the West Midlands region; it lasted into the early s, just long enough to bring some large employers to Halesfield, the corporation's largest industrial estate, begun in Other large estates followed at Stafford Park from and Hortonwood from , and half a million square metres of factory space were provided between and , almost entirely on land made available by the corporation.
A few firms built factories on ground leased from the corporation, but generally the corporation built standard factories for letting. Within the limits of I. Outline permission for homes and other facilities was granted in , earlier phases of the project have already been fully approved.
Forty-two of the proposed houses will have two bedrooms, with three-bed and 70 four-bed homes. A majority of the 56 planned affordable homes will have three bedrooms. The Hadley and Leegomery Parish Council and an Eyton on the Weald Moors parish meeting will be asked for their views about the plans during a consultation period that runs until Wednesday, October 6. Maxell was known for specialising in video and audio tape and batteries, but with changing technologies shifted its operations into new areas of the plastics industry.
Former Telford factory could be replaced by hundreds of homes. Subscribe to our daily newsletter! Sign Up. The firm moved to new Telford premises in Local Hubs.
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