Hi Mrs. T. Nice to know you are walking round my "old" area. I always considered myself lucky growing up around the Witton Lakes area and also the closeness of Brookvale Park. They were our playgrounds.
I wanted to add for Sandra some extra info on the houses in Hidson Road and Woolmore Roads. Most of the houses were leasehold with a 99 year lease. However, you could buy out the lease for total ownership. The leases on some of the houses were held by a company called Bulpitt and Sons of Birmingham. This company manufactured many well known household items in Birmingham. I am not sure how they became involved in the development of the land these houses were built on but it was probably an investment package for Bulpitt. My parents transferred their ownership from Leashold to Freehold under the terms of the Leasehold Reform Act in 1967. I seem to remember that the base cost of the houses and land at the time the houses were built was four hundred pounds. I know the houses did not have any add ons such as garages, verandas, walls in the front and slabs for the front gardens, etc You had to have a garage built if you wanted one and every house in Hidson Road had a space for one. In Woolmore Road this didn't happen as they built more houses per site. A laneway or gully as we called it was put through on Woolmore Road and later people built their garages at the end of their gardens with access via the gully.