Telford 24 Seven

Telford officially celebrated its 40th birthday in a blaze of colour on July 6. But as TOBY NEAL reports, the real anniversary is still to come.

Telford shoppers Alan Jarvis and Sharon Serjani enjoy a 40th birthday display in the town’s shopping centre.

“It’s Telford!” screamed the headlines in 1968 announcing, the creation of Telford New Town.
A lot of locals scratched their heads. They had known for some time that there were plans to expand the Dawley New Town concept by roping in the Wellington and Oakengates areas.

But that name . . . Telford. So far as is known, nobody in Shropshire had suggested it.
Newspapers had to explain that Thomas Telford was the great Scottish engineer of the 18th and 19th centuries who had become Shropshire’s first county surveyor. He had done much road building and bridgebuilding work across the county although not very much, as it happened, within the area encompassed by the new town named in his honour.

There had been a strong local campaign to retain the name of Dawley in the new town’s name, or even to name it after the Wrekin in some way. But the Government wanted a completely new identity.
It is perhaps not going too far to say that at the time Telford was designated, its predecessor Dawley New Town had lost its way and was simply marking time while those in officialdom made up their minds on the future.

With the advent of Telford, at a stroke the size of east Shropshire’s new town was doubled. Telford was going to be a mini city, with an eventual projected population of around 220,000.

Dawley Development Corporation was superseded by Telford Development Corporation to work in partnership and consultation with local councils - but in practice it more or less had the power to do what it wanted.

The “locals” could moan, they could complain, and they could object, but their voices were drowned out in the march of progress.
The announcement of the new town was made on October 23, 1968, but the actual order creating it became effective on Friday the 13th of December of that year.

This year, July 6 was designated as the official day to mark the town’s 40th anniversary, and a week-long series of events were held leading up to the milestone. Actually, the date has no significance – it was just nice to party in summer weather.

Telford was very much in the spirit of the times when there was a fever for renewal and modernity, and the conservation movement was relatively weak.

Many Shropshire towns were to see attractive or distinguished buildings swept away in the 1960s. No doubt many would have disappeared in the Telford area anyway, under slum clearance schemes and the like.

But there was also much destruction in the name of Telford which rankles with locals to this day and quickly came to be seen as mistakes. Tong Castle was demolished to make way for the M54 motorway serving the town, Madeley’s traditional High Street was destroyed and replaced by a very 1960s district centre, with elevated walkways, flats, a pedestrianised precinct, and the like, and estates such as Sutton Hill, Woodside, Brookside and Stirchley came into being.

Ironically work is now starting, 40 years on, to try to repair the damage inflicted on Madeley and re-establish some of the High Street feel, while across Telford, underpasses which were once the very epitome of modern living have been filled in because people felt safer braving the traffic.
A more successful side of Telford is the business community. It became a manufacturing mecca, attracting big overseas names like Ricoh, Epson and Denso which are still thriving today, and from the small acorns of the Carrefour store in the new town centre (remember that?), an ambitious plan is now in place to turn the site into one of the most dynamic shopping complexes in the land.

So happy birthday Telford . . . over the next few pages, we take a look at how locals have been celebrating the milestone.

BLAST FROM THE PAST - THE WORLD IN 1968.
* In the pre-decimalisation days, a gallon of petrol cost 74 pence
* A three-bed semi detached house cost around £2,500
* A futuristic twin-tub washing machine was launched, costing 51 Guineas.
* The new Volvo 144 car had an on-the-road price of £1,353
* Prime Minister Harold Wilson backed a campaign to get British to work an extra hour a week for no extra pay
* Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee, and Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated.
* Enoch Powell made his controversial “Rivers of Blood” speech.
* In The Heat Of The Night wins best picture Oscar, and George Lazenby is unveiled as the new James Bond.
* Manchester United lifted their first European Cup, and Italy beat Yugoslavia in the European Championship final.