| AdminHistory | The Estates and Buildings Committee first met in December 1851. The function of the committee was to have charge of all estates and public buildings belonging to the Council, to make rules and regulations on their management and purchase, and to manage all treaties and contracts that the Council may resolve to enter into for the purchase, maintenance and improvement of the estates. Further, the committee was to make new or alter existing streets under the Borough Improvement Act, 1851, a task formerly assigned to the Street Commissioners. In January 1875 the Estates and Buildings Committee was merged with the Burial Board.
From January 1875 to October 1919, the Estates Committee was merged with the Burial Board to form the Estates and Burial Grounds Committee. The estates function of the committee continued to operate under the same mandate, but now it had become responsible for the borough cemetery at Witton. The functions of the board had been to maintain and administer the cemetery, investigate complaints, staffing issues and the like. However, with the expansion of Birmingham in 1911, the committee also became responsible for Brandwood End (opened 1899) and Lodge Hill (Kings Norton opened 1895), Handsworth (opened in 1909) and Yardley (opened in 1883), as these cemeteries now came under the care of the Birmingham City Council. In 1919, the cemeteries were placed under the care of the Parks Committee (see BCC/1/BO).
Further, the Improvement Committee (BCC/1/AX) was amalgamated with the Estates Committee in November 1899. The Improvement Committee was appointed by the Council in July 1875, to 'receive official representations from the Medical Officer of Health, under the Artisans and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act, 1875, on the health of an area or areas within the Borough and to report thereon; and to prepare and submit from time to time to the Council for approval, a draft scheme or schemes for the improvement of any such area or areas, with estimates of cost, and generally carry into effect the provisions of the said Act with authority to employ such professional and other assistance as they deem necessary'. The Act made the house owners responsible for keeping their properties in good order and gave local authorities the right to buy and demolish slums if they were not improved. Slum areas were breeding grounds for diseases like cholera and smallpox. The minutes cover the purchase of single properties to larger schemes, covering wide areas of both domestic and commercial property, such as the redevelopment of Corporation Street. Within a year of its formation, the Committee had commenced over 70 projects.
In November 1919, after just two years, the two functions of the Housing and Town Planning Committee were split. This separation occurred after the passing of the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1919 (the Addison Act), which would allow Local Authorities to plan and construct low cost housing. A coalition government won the 1918 general election overwhelmingly, and the Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, was keen to set about building a ‘land fit for heroes’ at the end of the First World War, with some 200,000 houses duly built nationwide during the period 1919 - 1922.
In Birmingham, the Town Planning Committee, after its separation from the Housing Committee was instead merged with the Public Works Committee and the Housing Committee was merged with the Estates Committee. The general nature of the estates function did not change, with the full duties of the committee were listed as follows; collection of rents for all Corporation properties; keeping a register of all surplus land for the Corporation; and receiving official representatives from the Medical Officer of Health, with regard to the unhealthy or insanitary conditions of any area within the borough, reporting back thereon, and preparing submissions to the Council for approval a draft schemes for the improvement of any such area, with estimates of cost. Finally, the committee was to carry out the provisions of the Housing Acts, and provide houses for the working class, which included an Assisted Housing Scheme, and was also required to demolish unfit housing.
In July 1922, the Housing and Estates Committee was renamed the Estates Committee, by agreement of the General Purposes Committee, and at the request of the Housing and Estates Committee. This was not simply a straight-forward renaming, since the contracting, design and erection of municipal housing was transferred, at this time, to the Public Works Committee (see BCC/1/AO), although the Estates Committee retained an interest in house building and sanitation, as well as continuing to deal with the letting of properties and rent collection. The Housing Acts of 1930 and 1936 further widened local government powers to deal with unfit, unhealthy and overcrowded dwellings, and led to a further swathe of slum clearance programmes, also reflected in the committee minutes. The Acts remained, until 1985, the principal legislation governing low-cost accommodation.
The committee remained unaltered until September 1950, when the Council created two new committees, the Housing Management Committee (see BCC/1/CY) and the House Building Committee (see BCC/1/CX). The housing function of the Public Works Committee was transferred to the House Building Committee, that of the Estates Committee to the Housing Management Committee. There was also a New Estates Committee constituted in February 1951, which took over the housing functions of the former Central Areas Management Committee (see BCC/1/CR).The New Estates Committee became responsible for the conveyance to and repair and collection of rents from all properties that pass to the ownership of the Council through a compulsory purchase order until such times that they can be pulled down.
In addition to this, the New Estates Committee retained management of combined dwelling houses and shops and the assessment and collection of rentals for all departments from the old Estates Committee, as well as negotiating leases and the acquisition of new sites. The committee continued until after April 1968, when the New Estates Committee was disestablished, with its functions, along with those of the Housing Management Committee and the House Building Committee being transferred to the new Housing Committee (see BCC/1/DH). |