Priory Estate - Crime

Crime

In October 2003, arsonists set fire to a pigeon loft in the garden of a house in Linwood Road and killed nine pigeons. 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.

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.

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.

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, but had been closed a short time earlier in spite of its popularity in the local community. The building has since been demolished and plans have already been unveiled for the site to be developed for housing and retail, but construction work has yet to start.

The rehousing of North Priory residents in preparation for demolition resulted in empty properties being scoured by scrap metal dealers in the hope of finding items of value, despite council workers having already stripped these properties of tanks and copper piping. Most of the empty properties were vandalised in some way, while several were damaged in arson attacks.