We live on UK's ‘worst’ street – it was full of picturesque gardens but now it's a living hell with homes set on FIRE | The Sun

PETRIFIED residents on the UK's "worst" street said it was once a picturesque corner of England – before morphing into a gang-riddled hellscape.

Bushway Close in the Brierley Hill area of Birmingham was an unremarkable collection of little bungalows.

Built for retired people, flowers grew around neat front lawns in the peaceful suburb.

But when the council emptied the bungalows and abandoned them, residents saw the road descend into a fire-ravaged free-for-all swarming with rats.

Homes are regularly burned, trees torched and drug abuse rife on the troubled spot now under the wing of crime gangs.

Mum Tracy Morgan, 46, whose home backs onto the forgotten road, says life there is "just carnage".

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She added: "I was sitting in the back garden and all of a sudden I could hear a gang of kids and I could see black smoke coming from the Close.

"They had set an outhouse on fire. You could see massive flames."

Fly tipping and rats on the overgrown road is also a daily occurrence – with the council burning through five bags of poison already this year.

Nearby Lower Valley Road boasts another dozen council bungalows which have been boarded up and left for over a year.

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Locals say because the bungalows were built on mine shafts, the Council could not afford to keep repairing them.

It used to be a lovely estate. Now it just attracts all the worst types

Instead they have sold the land to private developers and the plan is to knock them all down and start again.

But in the meantime, it’s a crime scene.

A 61-year-old support worker, who asked not to be named, said: "Gangs arrive at night, break in to the properties and strip them.

"They take out central heating boilers, all the copper pipe work, anything that they can sell for scrap. All the flash leading has gone from the chimney pots."

"It used to be a lovely estate. Now it just attracts all the worst types."

Stacy Harris, 32, said she is now too scared to go to bed some nights on an estate which is now the perfect spot for "lots of druggies".

The scared mum: "You have kids setting fire to stuff, you have gangs coming down with wheelbarrows… They take fireplaces away, internal doors, all the fencing."

'THEY EVEN TAKE DRAIN COVERS'

Meanwhile pensioner Dorothy Morgan, 68, said she is forever getting up to see what's happened next and fears the carnage could end in a tragedy.

She explained: "I was at the sink one day, looked out and a bloody big tree was on fire. They have even taken drain covers.

"We were told they were putting up gates to seal it off, we were told they were going to knock them all down but nothing has happened."

West Midlands Fire Service admitted they had responded to "a high number of arson fires in the void bungalows".

Brierley Hill Cllr John Martin said: "That area is subject to redevelopment. There are problems with ground levels.

"The bungalows have been boarded up by the council and sometimes they are subject to vandalism and antisocial-behaviour.

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"Some young people, a minority, do occasionally break into them and set fires. We had one a few days ago."

The Sun has approached Dudley Council for comment.

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