![Bretford Road, Wood End](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Bretford_Road%2C_Wood_End.jpg)
Wood End (aka Woodend) is an area in the north of the city of
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. Wood End is surrounded by the districts of
Bell Green
Bell Green is predominantly a residential area of in the north east of Coventry, West Midlands, England about 2.5 miles from the city centre. It was once home to over 50 different types of shops but due to the current economic climate and the c ...
,
Alderman's Green,
Potters Green and
Henley Green
Henley Green is a former council estate in Coventry at adjacent to Wood End, bordered by Deedmore Road, and about a mile from the area of Bell Green. Henley Green now consists of a mixture of private and social housing. The neighbourhood is par ...
.
To the south of Wood End is the Manor Farm estate, which along with Henley Green and Deedmore, make up the four areas marked for redevelopment in the
New Deal for Communities New Deal for Communities was a regeneration programme led by the government of the United Kingdom for some of the England's most deprived neighbourhoods. The programme was established by Tony Blair's Labour Government and was overseen by the Nei ...
programme.
Along with
Walsgrave and
Potters Green, these six areas make up the Henley
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
.
Wood End was built by the city council in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to rehouse families from inner-city slum clearances as well as people moving into the city to work in the city's then-booming car industry. However, by the 1980s, Wood End was soon recognised the as the district of Coventry with the worst level of social and economic deprivation, with some of the city's highest rates of crime and unemployment. Some £34million was invested on improving the estate between 1987 and 2002, with many homes being refurbished and some being demolished, as well as new community projects being launched, but crime rates remained high and Wood End was unable to shake-off its unwanted reputation.
Many of the homes are now owned by the
Whitefriars Housing Group
Whitefriars Housing Group Ltd is a housing association managing about 18,000 homes in Coventry, England. Constituted as a charitable industrial and provident society, it is Coventry's largest social landlord.
In December 2008 it became part of ...
, a
housing trust
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help fin ...
which took over the running and management of Coventry's council houses in 2000.
In April 2004, it was announced that Wood End, along with three other neighbouring districts, was to be extensively redeveloped. The outline plans stated that a large percentage of the estate's homes would be demolished and replaced with new homes to which existing tenants would be entitled to live.
It was reported on the 6 July 2006 ''
Coventry Evening Telegraph
The ''Coventry Telegraph'' is a local English tabloid newspaper. It was founded as ''The Midland Daily Telegraph'' in 1891 by William Isaac Iliffe, and was Coventry's first daily newspaper. Sold for half a penny, it was a four-page broadsheet new ...
'' that the
Severn Trent water company had revealed that the Wood End area is inaccessible without a police escort, even for emergencies, due to earlier attacks on employees. It was also revealed that Wood End is the only estate in the region which has a danger warning especially on Yewdale Crescent which is usually home to a serious issue of Wood End drug dealing and unfriendly behaviour. ; there has been civil unrest on several occasions.
On 12 May 1992, a wave of rioting which persisted for several days began in Wood End. Gangs of youths hurled petrol bombs at riot police after a crackdown on local youths using scrambler bikes. Passing vehicles were stoned, and nearby Wyken Infants School was badly damaged in an arson attack. The following night, 16 people were arrested after police were targeted with bricks and petrol bombs in a disturbance outside 'The Live & Let Live' public house. The rioting then spread to the
Willenhall
Willenhall is a market town situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England, with a population taken at the 2011 census of 28,480. It is situated between Wolverhampton and Walsall, historically in the county of ...
district in the south-east of the city. The third night of disturbances in Wood End saw rioters rip metal shutters from the frontage of a newsagents. On the fourth night, the rioters turned their attention to firefighters, who found themselves being stoned by a gangs of youths, while further disturbances in the Willenhall district saw police being targeted by missiles thrown from upstairs windows and balconies of flats. The rioting ceased on 17 May. Newly-elected local
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
MP
Bob Ainsworth condemned the violence, but was keen to highlight that it was almost inevitable due to the lack of opportunities available in the area, particularly unemployment which stood at around 25% locally, as well as family breakdown, poverty and child neglect. Witnesses even reported seeing middle-aged men cheering on the mostly teenage rioters as they rampaged and attacked the police. Other residents blamed the local police for their "harassment" of local youths, and defended the estate's reputation by praising its supposedly strong sense of community.
On 18 June 2009, around 30 people set fire to rubbish and debris around Ashorne Close and then threw missiles at police and firefighters.
References
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Suburbs of Coventry