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BLACKLEY Blackley is a district of Manchester , about 3 miles north of the City Centre. It contains the large municipal area of Heaton Park . In the middle of the 17th Century , Blackley - a hamlet mentioned in the Domesday Book - was a village of just 107 inhabitants. Today the area is home to more than 50,000 residents. Blackley is well served in terms of green space and parks with significant open spaces such as Tweedale Common, Irk Valley, Blackley Forest, Nutbank Common and Heaton Park . Heaton Park is the largest municipal park in Europe and at 259 hectares (641 acres) comprises 25% of the City's total green space. Blackley also contains the Grove Public House and the park known as Boggart Hole Clough (148 hectares, 365 acres). It was also an industrial centre of international status. Here is found Avieca, successor to ICI and AstraZeneca . It was in the ICI laboratories that not only dyestuffs but also medical breakthroughs such as the anti-malarial drug Paludrine and Antrycide to combat African sleeping sickness were discovered. The area is currently being redeveloped with modern housing for the 21st century. Blackley also contains three primary schools, two secondary schools, a range of nursery and childcare provision, an adult education centre, two doctors' surgeries and a NHS clinic, a youth and community centre, library and police station. Blackley is pronounced blake-ley () not black-ley (). LOCAL POLITICS Labour first won this seat during their landslide victory of 1945, only to lose it again in 1951 when Churchill triumphantly led the Conservatives back to power. The next time Labour wrested the seat from the Tories was in 1964 when the party again formed a new government. Since then, Blackley has ceased to be a weather vane seat which swings with the country and instead has stayed with Labour in every subsequent election. The seat lies in the north of Manchester and borders the suburbs of Prestwich to the west and Chadderton and Failsworth to the east. Alkrington (in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale ) borders to the north and the Manchester district of Harpurhey borders to the south. It is mainly a residential area of declining suburbs, with deprivation particularly noticeable to the north of the seat. the current MP is Graham Stringer Labour. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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