building as commercial units for up to 6 businesses. Until the early 2020s Shaw and Crompton was home to Shop Direct Group's Shaw National Distribution Centre, which was one of the UK's largest warehouse distribution centres. The company occupied three former cotton mills and state-of-the-art purpose-built storage and sorting facilities on a complex within the town. In 2007, the site became the retail company's only packing and distribution centre for non-bulk items. At its peak it employed nearly 1,000 staff, making it the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham's largest private employer. Governance Crompton was recorded in 1212 as being one of the five parts of the thegnage estate of Kaskenmoor, which was held on behalf of King John by Roger de Montbegon and William de Nevill. The other parts of this estate were Glodwick, Sholver, Oldham, and Werneth, names and places still familiar today. Crompton would later form a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of Salford. Throughout the Middle Ages, local men acted as jurors and constables for the purposes of upholding law and order in the township. Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Crompton formed part of the Oldham Poor Law Union, an inter-parish unit established to provide social security. Crompton's first local authority was a Local board of health established in 1863; Established with reference to the Local Government Act 1858, Crompton Local Board of Health was a regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation in the township. Following the Local Government Act 1894, the area of the Local Board became the Crompton Urban District, a local government district within the administrative county of Lancashire. The urban district council was based out of Shaw/Crompton Town Hall, which opened on 28 December 1894. Under the Local Government Act 1972, the towns urban district status was abolished and the area has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, a local government district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. A civil parish of Crompton was formed in April 1987 and renamed to "Shaw and Crompton" in July 1987. The civil parish has its own parish council, giving it some limited local government autonomy from that of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, and including the status as a statutory consultee on local planning applications. The council comprises 14 locally elected members and is consulted in planning applications