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Council Housing

Brian60

proper brummie kid
Looking through family histories of people in the Birmingham Area, it's easy to see how moving to council properties must have improved the living standards of many in this area. Some people moved from dreadful slums to quite pleasant council housing.

When did council house building become a significant factor in Birmingham housing.
 
Between 1919 -1939 there were 50,000 houses built by BCC the first of these in Cotterills lane.Alum rock.
I think that one of the first large estates was Kingstanding ,followed by Shard End.
I moved to the massive Chelmsley in 1968.then owned by Birmingham but later the houses were transferred to Solihull borough council.
I can't recall any council houses being built in Birmingham since the late 70s.
My husband started working in maintainance for BCC in 1993 and has seen a drop
in houses owned by the council this is the result partly of demolition of tower blocks and also people having the right to buy their council house,
Most social housing now is owned by housing associations.
 
Personally I disagree with selling off council housing, everybody is not financially able to buy a property (especially at the present time) or simply does not wish to do so preferring to rent, council housing being far more affordable to rent than private. I feel for the young wishing to set up home. Eric
 
According to my Mother, her side of the family moved from Irving st. to a new house in Birches Green rd., Erdington. (Some of the family are still there). Does anyone know when the houses in Birches Green rd. were built ?
 
I have bought my house from the council, so obviously I don't disagree with the right to buy. However, what I do not agree with is the property being sold afterwards to landlords who then rent them out, otherwise councils should have kept them in the first place. It should be stipulated that council houses will never be allowed to be sold for rental purposes, at least that would give the youngsters a chance to buy their first home. I have strong opinions on the private sector anyway, and for every house that a landlord owns and rents out, is a house a young family cannot call their own. They should only be rented by councils and housing associations.
 
According to my Mother, her side of the family moved from Irving st. to a new house in Birches Green rd., Erdington. (Some of the family are still there). Does anyone know when the houses in Birches Green rd. were built ?

The houses in Birches Green rd., Erdington were what we call pre-war, so I think they were built around 1930's
 
Personally I disagree with selling off council housing, everybody is not financially able to buy a property (especially at the present time) or simply does not wish to do so preferring to rent, council housing being far more affordable to rent than private. I feel for the young wishing to set up home. Eric

Nothing has really changed Eric, it has always been a struggle to get on the housing ladder, the problem nowadays is that the young are less inclined to make the effort and save the deposit rather preferring to spend their money on clubbing and bingeing on wine and gadgets.

When I married in 1952 we went to the Birmingham housing office and asked to be put on the waiting list for a council house, we were told bluntly "Come back and see us again when you've got four kids."

We lived with my wife's mother saved hard and had enough for a deposit by 1956 despite having a child and being in low paid work.

The sale of council houses hasn't reduced the number of houses available, they didn't pull them down just moved the ownership and the responsibility of maintaining them, what did reduce the numbers was the widespread demolition of whole areas in what was in some cases a dubious slum clearance programme.
 
Eric, like you I was married in 1952 (December 27th) I was in the RAF at the time and we spent our first 2 1/2 years in Hong Kong and Singapore where my daughter was born, when I was demobbed in '56, went to the council about housing and was offered a flat in Telford new town an overspill develpoement ! So we had to move to my in-laws whilst saving for a deposit for our own home, as you say if we had a large family instead of 1 baby we may have got something (more points). Incidently the house I have now was originally Birmingham council but I am the third owner and it was private when I bought it in 1987 and under the boundary changes now comes under Solihull. Eric
 
My brother Allen was in Singapore around that time Eric, he was in the Royal Signals, a linesman attached to the RAF I think. He told me he witnessed an RAF plane coming to grief on landing.
 
I have always had very strong opinions about this subject and without getting political---
I bought the house I had been in for 10 years from Birmingham council in 1980, opposite Eric incidently,and moved across the road to Bacons End 1998.
If the money raised from the sale of the council houses had gone back into building others the vendors would be housed as they were before but new houses would have become available to rent from the local authority, unfortunately it never happened.
 
Nothing has really changed Eric, it has always been a struggle to get on the housing ladder, the problem nowadays is that the young are less inclined to make the effort and save the deposit rather preferring to spend their money on clubbing and bingeing on wine and gadgets.

When I married in 1952 we went to the Birmingham housing office and asked to be put on the waiting list for a council house, we were told bluntly "Come back and see us again when you've got four kids."

We lived with my wife's mother saved hard and had enough for a deposit by 1956 despite having a child and being in low paid work.

The sale of council houses hasn't reduced the number of houses available, they didn't pull them down just moved the ownership and the responsibility of maintaining them, what did reduce the numbers was the widespread demolition of whole areas in what was in some cases a dubious slum clearance programme.
Hi Eric,
Without doubt the sale of council houses has reduced the number available. The tenants occupy a council house and when they die the house is available for the next on the list. If they have bought the house when they die it is sold and the money distributed amongst their descendants or to whoever it has been left. The next on the list remain waiting.
As for the slum clearance that was dealt with by the building of new estates such as Shard End and Chelmsley Wood and new towns such as Tamworth and Telford.
Old Boy
 
Hi Eric,
Without doubt the sale of council houses has reduced the number available. The tenants occupy a council house and when they die the house is available for the next on the list. If they have bought the house when they die it is sold and the money distributed amongst their descendants or to whoever it has been left. The next on the list remain waiting.
As for the slum clearance that was dealt with by the building of new estates such as Shard End and Chelmsley Wood and new towns such as Tamworth and Telford.
Old Boy

I didn't of course say that it hadn't reduced the number of council houses, what I said was that it hadn't reduced the total housing stock, i.e. they didn't demolish them they were still available to live in whether by tenants or owner occupiers.
My older brother also moved into overspill housing, a maisonette in Aldridge then later a house in Rushall, he used to say he wouldn't hang a mortgage round his neck but in 1970 he emigrated to Australia took out a loan and bought a house.
 
Both my parents famlies lived in the city or very nearby, ie Dean street Cregoe st and Lee Bank. With the slum clearence they moved out to places like Tyseley, Northfield and Mosely. One of my aunts moved to a new eight story block of flats in Northfield in 1962 from a back to back in Cregoe st, she thought the inside loo and hot running water was wonderful not to mention the underfloor heating, and the uninterupted view from the balcony (third floor) to the Clent Hills. Come 2010 they were classed as a type of slum and were demolished.
 
Both sets of grand parents lived in council houses, both in Tyseley. After WW2 my own parents were allocated a council house in Garretts Green, my father's three younger brothers all bought houses. At grammar school I was the only one in my form ( I didn't say class as that would be ambiguous!) that had council house roots, so not a lot of social mobility there. But never a problem. My wife, another ex-grammar school pupil from a council house background, and I were able to buy an ex council house when we got married in 1968 so council houses were being sold before Mrs Thatcher. In fact I remember a few privately owned ex council houses in Tyseley in 1940's
 
Due to the sale of council houses many of them have eventually ended up owned by private landlords. It is easy to find rented former council houses next door to houses still rented by the local council.

I think we can guess which has the higher rent.
 
Due to the sale of council houses many of them have eventually ended up owned by private landlords. It is easy to find rented former council houses next door to houses still rented by the local council.

I think we can guess which has the higher rent.

But the private landlord doesn't have the benefit of the taxpayer to underwrite the cost of maintenance Brian, he has to fund it himself, a dodgy tenant, and there are many, will wipe out any benefit the landlord has and the council housing officers will hound him into the ground if he falls down on the service he provides.

My parents council house had no hot water no central heating no double glazing and an outside toilet from when they moved in is January 1933 until the late 1960s when at last they had hot water installed (and a rent increase) there was still the outside toilet and no central heating when she had to go into a nursing home in 2005.
The district nurse was unhappy about her gas stove and gas fire, the inspectors came and condemned both as producing dangerous carbon monoxide gas, the council said she would have to pay to have them replaced, this is an 86 year old widow living alone who has been a good tenant for over 60 years.

If I look back at my parents situation, their rent at the start was 10/3d a week, at the end it was £35 per fortnight, the houses were built at a cost of £125. they bought and paid for that house many times in their lifetime.
 
You make a good point Eric. Many people must have paid for their council houses several times over.
 
A lot of the reason that councils reduced their house-building programmes in the late 70s was down to the new regulations from the Thatcher government. In addition to the "right to buy", city councils had to fund all new developments by selling existing stock at discounted prices either to tenants or to housing organisations. Some estates were even transferred to the new associations on the suggestions that they would make the improvements that the council couldn't afford to make because they had to fund them from housing income whereas the new associations could get government grants. Much was made of the new associations improvements in inner city housing although this may have been a matter of a 3rd sector organisation having a publicity budget where the council hadn't previously considered self-promotion.
 
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