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Anne Melling remembers when she first set eyes on the council estate that would become her new home. At the time Worsley Mesnes was a still a muddy building site. And Anne and her young family were being asked to try envision what this corner of Wigan might become.

"When we first came nothing had been built," the 80-year-old said. "They were walking me round saying 'We're going to be building houses and maisonettes' - I didn't even know what a maisonette was!"

That was the mid-to-late 1960s and on a plot of disused farm and industrial land about a mile and half to the south of the town centre, Worsley Mesnes - pronounced 'mains' - was taking shape.

A decade earlier the local council had estimated that 24,000 homes in the borough were unfit for human habitation. View 7

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