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Housing : Birmingham Council Municipal Housing

A significant about of Birmingham social houses was built before WWII by a Direct Labour scheme. I don’t know anything about the 1944 Blitz and Blight Act, but know that a large number of system built houses were constructed towards and after the end of WWII, which is a subject all in itself.
 
Morturn said:
A significant about of Birmingham social houses was built before WWII by a Direct Labour scheme. I don’t know anything about the 1944 Blitz and Blight Act, but know that a large number of system built houses were constructed towards and after the end of WWII, which is a subject all in itself.
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The information that is coming is fascinating, interesting and as usual in keeping with the abilities of forum members, were the system built houses what I came to know as Cornish units when I moved to Plymouth, concrete based, difficult to explain unless you have seen them, I will try to find a picture or definition as soon as I can. But all this has now given rise to another question, how many estates did the City build? and where were they?
Eric
Thank you for your information, I did not realise they went back to the 1920s, I thought they were a result of the great depression.
Bob
 
The council had a more or less continuous house building programme right up until 1984. They used their own labour until the late 60’s as a direct labour organisation. They also built widely across the city and used up a lot of sites, some quite small like the Finsbury Road development in Erdington and another at Kents Moat
 
These Cornish Units are in the side road adjacent to my front garden.
Lots of them around here, they've been clad with fake brick pattern plastic insulation over the concrete walls Cornish.JPGin recent years.
 
Event in Weoley Castle
oldMohawk said:
In 1933, Neville Chamberlain opened Birmingham’s 40,000th post-WW1 council dwelling at 30, Hopstone Road on the Weoley Castle Estate.
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The scene doesn't look too different today apart from uPVC windows and a wheely bin.
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Separately, I have a question while it might be a little off topic, please indulge me.

When I left Brum I was 19 and owing or renting a house was so far away! The house we lived in on Radnor Rd Handswoth was rented, the owner was King Edwards Grammar School, that was 1962 and we had been there over 10 years.

How dis that work? The sense I have was that private ownership was not really available until later and there always seemed to be a long wait to get into council houses which we were never able to.

Any insight is appreciated...........
 
Image result for cornish units1599576652063.jpeg

My expertise as a computer wizard continues unbounded, I only wanted one picture I got two and the offer of a thumbnail, anyway two pictures of an original post war Cornish Unit. Why Cornish? I understand that the first ones were made by Selleck, Nicholls and Williams who were a subsidiary of English China Clays (Now IMERYS and French owned). I cannot swear to this, but this was what came out of the Janners and cousin jacks when I was on the ground in Cornwall and uz wuz avin the crack about these and that and the good luck of being Cornish and living in Gods own county which of course was at the end of Gods Wonderful Railway. A lot of them suffered terribly with concrete cancer, others did not and remained habitable and were much loved by those who lived in them, there was a romantic sentimentalism the same as for the prefab. Did they appear in Birmingham? Did Birmingham sell of some of their leases?
Morturn
The direct labour system was in a way an early privatisation scheme was it not? An attempt by councils to cut back on heavy employee filled sections of the council to turn in a profit. Please correct me if I have got it wrong.
Bob
 
I always understood that direct labour just meant that work was done by the organization (council) concerned and not put out to outside contractors. The council had this long before attempts to privatise the work occurred
 
Both Birmingham Council, a few other local councils and the Bournville Trust experimented with non-traditional house construction. Most of them involved the use of precast reinforced concrete structural members. Lots of the systems went under various trade names. The real aim was to bring down costs.



The Cornish type I house with the Mansard roof was built to that design to save cladding and again drive down costs, but I don’t recall seeing any in Birmingham. The social houses I know of with Mansard roofs were traditional construction.

There were of course some expensive disasters with concrete housing. My opinion of this is people thought of concrete as the wonder one size fits all solution to build everything, with very over simplistic methods.

Unfortunately, concrete is complex, and it does not like some of the poor-quality aggregates that were used and the way it was mixed on building sites. This misunderstanding of quality control caused lots of ongoing concrete problems, that often revolved around ongoing chemical reactions. We all know the stories of building collapsing built from high-alumina cements.

These premature failures gave system construction a bad name. Interestingly the BISF house (British steel framed house) were very good and quite few of them still stand today.

There were also the prefabs, however the companies who built prefabs were open about the expected life span, most of them exceeding it.

Bob, I am not sure what Birmingham did with the leases.
 
Morturn said:
Both Birmingham Council, a few other local councils and the Bournville Trust experimented with non-traditional house construction. Most of them involved the use of precast reinforced concrete structural members. Lots of the systems went under various trade names. The real aim was to bring down costs.



The Cornish type I house with the Mansard roof was built to that design to save cladding and again drive down costs, but I don’t recall seeing any in Birmingham. The social houses I know of with Mansard roofs were traditional construction.

There were of course some expensive disasters with concrete housing. My opinion of this is people thought of concrete as the wonder one size fits all solution to build everything, with very over simplistic methods.

Unfortunately, concrete is complex, and it does not like some of the poor-quality aggregates that were used and the way it was mixed on building sites. This misunderstanding of quality control caused lots of ongoing concrete problems, that often revolved around ongoing chemical reactions. We all know the stories of building collapsing built from high-alumina cements.

These premature failures gave system construction a bad name. Interestingly the BISF house (British steel framed house) were very good and quite few of them still stand today.

There were also the prefabs, however the companies who built prefabs were open about the expected life span, most of them exceeding it.

Bob, I am not sure what Birmingham did with the leases.
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Thank you for a very concise reply, I was involved in building 61 to 66 and at that time many naughty things were done with concrete including in a temperature -5deg C one winter putting anti-freeze in the mortar mix, until stopped by the Clerk of the Works. The strange thing is that a council house on a council estate was just that and never given another thought about the genesis of it, but it would appear that there is a whole history to be explored, but one thing that stands out is that they have lasted well and while 60s built blocks of flats are demolished the council house or ex council house goes on.
Mikejee
My knowledge of the DLO system is limited, but I always understood that it was a scheme to cut the costs by trimming the surplus workforce (I could enlarge on this but it relates to Devon not Birmingham and it might upset any mods because I went off theme) and attempting to cut the construction costs. But an interesting thought were any forum members involved in this side of the councils operations?
Again BHF members have answered a question, thank you all for your input.

Bob
 
Bob

There were a number of council Direct Labour Organisations (DLO) within Birmingham Council. The Elan Valley Scheme was built by the DLO. I understand that Hams Hall Power Station may have been too.

The social housing DLO was disbanded in the late 60’s early 70’s, but I don’t know what the rational was behind it as social housing was still being built. I suspect it may have been cost driven. Labour costs are a significant part of any building project and the council employees were engaged on decent terms and conditions. Saying that, the council rates of pay were lower than the private sector, but work on the council was regular. As we know, the building industry has always been a roller-coaster of boom and bust.

Social housing, to my knowledge was still being built up until 1984, then by private contractors. I know a number of DLO employees ended up working for the council’s maintenance DLO.

The council’s maintenance DLO was eventually privatized in 2000 or externalised as the council prefers to call it. The councils published reasoning was that it removed the risk to the public purse and that the DLO had suddenly started to return a loss on its last three years of trading. It was retuning a healthy profit in the previous ten years.
 
In the book 'OUR BIRMINGHAM' printed April 1943 is a study of Birmingham's way forward regarding housing. The study was partly carried out by 'Scholars of Gower Street Senior Boys' School, Aston'. Published by Cadbury Bros, Bournville.
Housing was designated into three groups:

1. Back to back houses. This type of house didn't have a hall or a scullery - only a living kitchen. Badly ventilated.
It was estimated that there were 38,000 of this type of house in use.

2. Tunnel back houses. This type of house was considered to be better than the back to backs because they had a scullery, a living room and a parlour but no bathroom or indoor w.c. There were over 100,000 of this type of house in use at the time of the study.

3. The houses built by Birmingham , starting in 1920 when the large municipal estates were being developed consisted of:

A coal bunker, a yard, a scullery, a hall, a living room, a parlour, three bedrooms, indoor bathroom and w.c. and a garden.
In twenty three years Birmingham built over 104,00 houses of this type. The negative side of living on a municipal estate at this time was that they were far from places of work.

At the time of the study, there were over two hundred people to the acre in the inner city wards.
 
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Bob Johnson said:
In the book 'OUR BIRMINGHAM' printed April 1943 is a study of Birmingham's way forward regarding housing. The study was partly carried out by 'Scholars of Gower Street Senior Boys' School, Aston'. Published by Cadbury Bros, Bournville.
Housing was designated into three groups:

1. Back to back houses. This type of house didn't have a hall or a scullery - only a living kitchen. Badly ventilated.
It was estimated that there were 38,000 of this type of house in use.

2. Tunnel back houses. This type of house was considered to be better than the back to backs because they had a scullery, a living room and a parlour but no bathroom or indoor w.c. There were over 100,000 of this type of house in use at the time of the study.

3. The houses built by Birmingham , starting in 1920 when the large municipal estates were being developed consisted of:

A coal bunker, a yard, a scullery, a hall, a living room, a parlour, three bedrooms, indoor bathroom and w.c. and a garden.
In twenty three years Birmingham built over 104,00 houses of this type. The negative side of living on a municipal estate at this time was that they were far from places of work.

At the time of the study, there were over two hundred people to the acre in the inner city wards.
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Gosh!! my grandmother at Harborne lived in Grays Road which matches the description of a tunnel back house. Bob, thanks very much for all that info.

Bob
 
devonjim said:
View attachment 148195
This was another style of house, prefabricated? maybe not, that was built in 1950's in Garretts Green, picture from Google 2020 so still being used.
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This is indeed a BISF house (British steel framed house). System built but these did actually work and did not suffer the defects of other system built houses. Council had quite a few of these. I think around 30,000 were built across the UK
 
Morturn said:
This is indeed a BISF house (British steel framed house). System built but these did actually work and did not suffer the defects of other system built houses. Council had quite a few of these. I think around 30,000 were built across the UK
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Hi,

I was told that the cladding on these houses contained asbestos, - is that true?

Talking of concrete houses, what about the No Fines houses at Chelmsley Wood.
Roughcast concrete and no reinforcing bars!

Kind regards
Dave
 
Some do or at least did, however the BISF houses could be clad with a combination of steel, wood and even brick.

There were Wimpey no-fines houses built in Birmingham too. I recall there were quite a few in Newtown. In my opinion, it was a method of construction that was of its time. There to meet the needs of a shortage of materials and skilled labour.

They seemed to be structurally sound but did not have very good heat insulation. They were a pain to work on if you had to drill through the walls, you had to get a diamond drilling machine. I thought aesthetically, they did look not so good with the drab grey of concrete render. The design in my opinion was also poor, the small windows made them look like a place I would not like to live.
 
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Dave89 said:
Hi,

I was told that the cladding on these houses contained asbestos, - is that true?

Talking of concrete houses, what about the No Fines houses at Chelmsley Wood.
Roughcast concrete and no reinforcing bars!

Kind regards
Dave
Click to expand...
were i live in brum was full of the stuff. bath panel, airing cupboard. the council said 1599834446545.pngif so get in touch with us. immediately, and we will send some one out to you.... "they did" a team that looked like they were going to the moon.
removed the damaged bath panel.
 
I can remember it being used in "bandage form to insulate scientific apparatus in the 1960s, and if you were a fan of American cigarettes in the 50s t
it could have been in your cigarette filter!
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my disabled sister who lives in a bungalow is having the bath ripped out and made into a wet room soon but before that happens the council are sending someone out to test for asbestos...

lyn
 
On the houses subject anyone remember what we called the lavatory houses? :)

On the Ridgeway, Perry Common they built a few blocks with white glazed bricks on the front.
 
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