| AdminHistory | The Housing Inquiry Committee was a special committee comprising nine members, chaired by Neville Chamberlain. Set up in 1913, its chief function was to investigate the present housing conditions of the poor in Birmingham, to review the past policy of the Council in administering the Housing Acts, to obtain information as to the conditions existing in other places, and to report the facts with their recommendations as to any future action to be taken by the Council. To tackle their remit, the committee asked the City Surveyor to supply a map of areas cleared or where houses have been ‘closed’ by the Corporation, Railway Companies or by house owners and asked the Medical Officer to give statistical information by ward regarding overcrowding, unsanitary or unhealthy conditions, with special attention to common lodging houses.
A Chairman's Memorandum of 2 April 1914 (minute 95) makes a serious case for municipal housing programmes, condemning the failure of private enterprise and arguing that only local government could meet the mass scale housing requirements of the future. On 23 June 1914 (minute 191) it was recommended that the Corporation should build smaller blocks of flats near places of work, rather than larger ones near centre of city, as many were employed a long distance from the centre, and would therefore be inconvenienced by tram fares. In this respect the process of suburbanisation (living a distance away from work) was not an option, yet the continued demolition of insanitary slum dwellings and tenements would, appositely, entail the dispersion of these central working class communities, and the settlement of families on peripheral estates far from the businesses and workshops in the city centre where they had worked. The committee was now concluding that it would be impossible to build one family houses at 3s / 6d to 5 / - per week in the Improvement Area around Corporation Street; combined tenements on cheap sites were now the only option, and that these might not be self-supporting anyway.
A report of 20 October 1914 looked at the housing conditions of Birmingham’s poor, and whilst arguing that there were bad tenants who could be blamed for some insanitary conditions, most available housing perpetuated the problem, as they were too small and prone to clutter to be kept clean effectively. The main problem identified with the undertaking of the Improvement Scheme from 1875 was the friction between the Council and property owners, who preferred to demolish their property rather than carry out the necessary repairs. The committee now felt that the only solution was to begin large scale municipal house building projects, citing research carried out by the Birmingham Socialist Centre undertaken as a result of visits to Liverpool and Manchester, as well as the experience of Birmingham's Milk Street scheme. It was argued that building a few houses in each area was 'merely playing with the subject', and were now calling for a wholesale transformation. The committee hoped that the introduction of model working class dwellings in the city might bring about a change in attitude amongst the working classes with regard to home ownership, with the more prosperous artisans moving out to the suburbs, the tier below them aspiring to move into their old houses, and the dilapidated houses left behind left vacant for the Council to renovate or demolish at their initiative. Working class suburbanisation was now beginning to happen, but only the more prosperous, upper-tier of the industrial workforce had the resources to live in better housing at a distance from their place of work. Meanwhile, the committee conceded that the Council lacked the resources to carry out this gradual transformation of the whole centre area of Birmingham.
Although the new Town Planning Act, 1909, did not apply to built-up areas, it did bring the power to issue closing and demolition orders from Magistrates to the Council, speeding up the rate of works. It was felt that there would not have caused a ‘house famine’ had it not been for the correspondingly slow rate of house building in Greater Birmingham area. Other issues that were identified as contributing the slow rate of house building were the general economic downturn during the early 1910s, including lack of market confidence, and the dearness of capital and building materials. Two estates at Bachelor’s Farm and Birches Green were identified as ripe for development, with pre-arranged roads, infrastructure and housing density clearly stated. During the Inquiry, in 1914, Chamberlain and the committee argued that the Council may need to step in, due to the fickle nature of private enterprise, and if not build houses, at least wash-houses and other needed facilities for health reasons, as too many of the Birmingham's poor were living in sub-standard accommodation, the result of a general and acute housing shortage. The report of 1914 drew one more conclusion with regard to housing policy and working class suburbanisation:
‘Until recent years a constant migration of the working classes from the centre to the suburbs was taking place. This migration has almost ceased, not because the workman has changed his desires, but because the erection of new houses has so much diminished that it has become impossible to obtain accommodation in the outskirts. The result is that voids in the centre of the city are almost non-existent, and tenants ejected from a house on which a closing order has been made have nowhere to go to. The Committee has thus been forced to the conclusion that a resumption of building in the suburbs is a necessary preliminary to more drastic measures in the centre.’
The Council's plan was thus to buy up undeveloped estates and, after developing them, constructing roads, sewers, mains; to let off building plots to Public Utility Socieites and builders; imposing restrictions on ground rents; town plans to be prepared, but the committee's groundwork and recommendations were interrupted by the outbreak of war in August 1914. The inquiry went on for nearly three years, well into the First World War. With the cessation of hostilities in 1918, the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, would promise 'a land fit for heroes', and thus the Housing and Town Planning Act was passed in 1919 (the Addison Act). This allowed Local Authorities to plan and construct low cost housing to meet need, as the Government would underwrite it. The committee also reported that the two key functions of the Public Health and Housing Committee (see BCC/1/BM) were too distinct to be amalgamated together, and reverted back to separate committees. |