| AdminHistory | The new municipal gas department was formed in 1875 following the takeover of the Birmingham Gas-Light and Coke Company and the Birmingham and Staffordshire Gas-Light Company. The department immediately turned over a profit and increased its productivity in its first year. The department moved into the old Birmingham and Staffordshire offices in Old Square and began to sell off supply areas of the former Birmingham and Staffordshire Gas-Light Company that were now considered out of its jurisdiction, such as the Black Country. By 1880, the West Bromwich supply had been sold to its own local authority, the former Birmingham Gas-Light Company works at Fazeley Street had been closed down and the price of gas to the consumer reduced. In 1889 there were complaints to the Corporation by private gas-fitters about the extremely cheap quotes given by its fitters for work.
Over the next 10 years, the department moved into new offices at Gas Hall on Edmund Street, and the supplies to Tipton, Sedgley, Oldbury, and Solihull were all sold to their respective local authority boards. Consumer prices further reduced and production continued to increase; indeed, construction on the Nechells works started in 1898, and by 1900 the Corporation was producing 5597 million cubic feet of gas, nearly twice the amount as when it took control of production, due in some part by its use to generate electricity.
Between 1900 and 1915, productivity nearly doubled again, with almost 10,000 million cubic feet of gas being produced, and apart from a slight increase to reflect the price of coal, the cost to the consumer continued to fall, namely as a result of cheaper contracts negotiated with coal suppliers. After a failed attempt to build a new works at Birches Green, Erdington, to meet increasing demand, a new works was constructed by 1927 at Washwood Heath. The Department were still supplying gas to Darlaston, Wednesbury and Sutton, an area of 125 square miles, with 1200 miles of mains (three times that of 1875). The post-war Labour government, elected in 1945, instigated a far-reaching nationalisation programme under the prime minister Clement Attlee, which encompassed key industries and utilities. On the 1 May 1949, the gas supply was taken into national ownership. |