Comment
Living on the fault line
When a couple of divergent tectonic plates decide to have a falling out, you know there will be trouble. As a no-fly zone Europe basks in warm sunshine under an allegedly impenetrable cloud of ash, a great big lump of pumice called Iceland is being torn apart by both continental drift and some rather shoddy banking. The North Atlantic might have its faults, but Walsall has a spectacular fault of its own. This fault, however, is more geo-political than geological. The result, though, is the same. Walsall is being torn apart.
The schism starts very close to where some gold was recently found, then runs west and to the south of Brownhills. It arcs around Pelsall and then heads toward the town centre. At the accident-waiting-to-happen ring road junction, it turns left up the Broadway between Chuckery and the Arboretum. At the Boundary, it hangs a left and goes up the Birmingham road and terminates to the south of Park Hall near Merrions Wood. Like all complex faults, there are many rifts, fissures and fractures, all of which lead back to a large, ornate building on Lichfield Street…