Demolition work has started to remove the last remaining eyesore tower block on a Black Country estate that has blighted the skyline for decades.

The 17-storey Phoenix Rise, in Blakenhall Gardens, is being taken down floor by floor at a cost of £1.2 million.

The Wolverhampton block hit the headlines in 1996 after it became a refuge for machete-wielding Horrett Campbell after he had attacked pupils at nearby St Luke’s School.

It is the last remaining block of six towers in the area built in the 1960s.

The work was due to start before Christmas last year but work was delayed due to the recession. The building is now set to vanish by December 17.

Each floor is currently propped up with scaffolding and a towering crane has been brought in to remove floors one by one before the side walls are taken away.

Site manager Tony David, 47, said: “We use this method when we have got limited space like here or in city centres.”

Wolverhampton Civic Council and regeneration company All Saints and Blakenhall Community Development (ABCD) has organised the project.

A team of 32 site workers from demolition company Coleman & Company have moved in to strip the walls, carefully remove asbestos using personal monitors, and then clear out the rest.

Bins lay around the site, full of material which is dropped down the now hollow lift shoots.

The demolition of the block is part of a  wider regeneration of the area.

A new £6.5m St Luke’s School has been built nearby while a £5.7m neighbourhood centre is also being created inside the former Glassy Inn Pub.

General manager James Howard, 40, visited St Luke’s to tell the pupils about the work and let them dress in construction gear.