| Prefabs were the result of the 1944 Temporary Housing Programme, and
were designed to provide a quick solution to the massive lack of housing
caused by the war. They had an important social function too. Many families,
or couples, were living in rented rooms with shared facilities, or in with
the in-laws. Overcrowding and lack of privacy were real problems, Also,
prefabs offered a proper home, in fact an up-to-date detached bungalow, which it
was hoped would attract women out of the factories and enable men to return
to work there. They were very often built on park edges in Birmingham, so those moving
into them, frequently working-class people, were almost moving into a 'country
cottage'. Prefabs were known as 'palaces for the people'. The whole issue of
prefabs is an interesting one, so we have widened our information beyond
Acocks Green per se. Prefabs were built round a central core of kitchen,
toilet and bathroom, designed
by the Ministry of Works. They had two bedrooms, the fitted
kitchen had fridge and cooker, running hot water, a wash boiler, and there
was built
in storage, electric lighting and sockets. For many, this was a huge leap in
quality of life. Prefabs did not look like inter-war British houses, but more
like American houses, so many thought they were American in design. Some
American prefabs were imported, but most were British designed and built.
The Arcon Mark V was one of the best known. It was built round a tubular
steel frame, with corrugated asbestos cement cladding, and a curved roof
apex. An example, from 85 Moat Lane, Yardley, is preserved at the
Avoncroft Museum of Buildings.
Austen and Betty Stokes, who had lived there, agreed to give the museum some
keepsakes, household items and knick-knacks for permanent display. The house
opened to the public at Avoncroft in the spring of 1983.
The Aluminium Bungalow was the most prefabricated of all the types, as it
arrived in sections on lorries. It was designed by aircraft workers. The
others were put together on site. The Uni-Seco and the Tarran were other
designs. Summaries of all the designs, apart from the Phoenix, can be found
in the sample pages in the
ebook by Brenda Vale. These pages include diagrams of layouts published
by the Ministry of Works in 1944.
The Phoenix was timber-framed, apart from the roof supports, and
asbestos-cement clad. It had a cottagey panelled wooden front door (see the
image at the bottom of this page). Very few of these were built.
Prefabs built in Acocks Green
We are
not completely certain at this stage which designs were represented in Acocks Green. There were
some on Gospel Lane between Severne Road and Pollard Road at the eastern end of Fox Hollies
Park. These were Arcons. There were more on Shirley Road between Oakhurst Road and Pool Farm Road, and another row just
round the corner in Pool Farm Road, both these groups being at the other end of the park.
All these were occupied by 1947. Elsie Carter remembers the Shirley Road row having corrugated walls, so they
were probably Arcons as well.
Another set were on Fox Hollies Road at
the former Hall site, and this row continued round behind Ferris Grove.
Ray Newton recalls that these were square, had flat roofs and walls that
were not corrugated. Patricia Smith recalls them as
being made of flat, cream asbestos-like panels with the front door on the side, and with low windows along the front.
These descriptions strongly suggest these prefabs were American imports, and
this is confirmed by maps, which show they are identical in outline to
American prefabs known to be at Colgreave Avenue, Hall Green.
An American prefab (source: Birmingham Libraries)
Prefabs at the Fox Hollies Hall site, 1960 (Birmingham
Libraries). The allotments in the grounds can also be seen.
The ones at the Hall site were built by Prisoners of War. When
the prefabs by the Hall were due to be removed, people were offered the
chance of taking them away, as long as they were not re-erected within the
city. As a result, a number of 'holiday homes' appeared in the surrounding
countryside and at the seaside!
The prefabs on the Fox Hollies Hall site had gone by 1962. A decision had
been made a few years before to redevelop the whole site, with tower blocks.
The ones on Gospel Lane had gone by the beginning of 1979, those on Pool Farm Road
had been removed by the end of 1979, and those on Shirley Road had gone by 1981.
There were more prefabs at 2-40 The Vineries. We do not know for sure
what type they were as yet, but we have shown pictures of the common designs
to Mr and Mrs Villanueva, who lived opposite them, and it appears they may
have been aluminium bungalows. This group began to appear in 1946, and they
were removed during 1964.
Lakefield Close had a group of aluminium bungalows. Numbers 1 to 65 and 2
to 42 were all occupied by 1947, and they had all gone by 1967.
Aluminium bungalows at Lakefield Close, c. 1950 (thanks to
Ted Holt for this picture)
The end of the prefabs in Birmingham
The City's prefab programme lasted from the end of the War until October
1948, by which time 4,625 had been provided. The costs of the British-designed buildings had turned out to be more
than anticipated, and only the imported United States ones were much cheaper
at £663. Aluminium bungalows ended up costing £1,1610, Arcon Mk Vs at
£1,209, Uni-Seco at £1,131, Tarran types from £1,022 to £1,147, and Phoenix
at £1,200. All these were built in Birmingham. (Source: Ministry of Works
figures, December 1947, quoted in Greg Stevenson's
Palaces for the people).
The City estimated at the same date that the cost of developing all their
prefab sites (roads, sewers, water, gas, electricity, and other works and
charges) came to £588,000. Of course, prefabs were not permanent buildings,
so in a sense the money spent on the groundworks had a short-term
usefulness. The Chairman of the Public Works Committee, Councillor G.H.
Griffith, said in August 1948 that he had not been able to find out why the
prefabs had turned out so expensive, and that permanent houses could be
built more cheaply. It was supposed to be easier to put together a prefab
than build a conventional house, but it appears, not surprisingly, that
delays frequently occurred because some components were duplicated and
others were missing from the packs. The Arcon Mk V had 390 components, so
there was obviously scope for mistakes to be made.
Prefabs could be cold in winter, especially in the severe winter of 1947,
but they were well liked by many of their tenants, who had moved into an instant
community. Prefabs could be too hot in summer as well, and could suffer from
leaks and condensation. In 1957 Local Authorities were allowed to buy them from the
Government for £150, as they were having difficulties building permanent housing quickly enough. The buildings outlasted their fifteen-year lifespan in most
cases, and Local Authorities faced resistance when they wanted to knock them
down. This is quite easy to understand, especially if the alternative was
life in a tower block. Some people had in fact moved from larger houses to prefabs
as they got older, because they were smaller and easier to maintain. Usually
there was a decent garden. Rents were low too, and, of course, there was
usually the parkland location.
Newspaper articles started appearing in the mid-1970s, showing the
resistance to demolition. A Mrs Beatrice Simpson of Coldbath Road in
Billesley said in the Evening Mail of 27 August 1975:
When I look out of my kitchen
window and see the snow sweeping through the trees and over the golf course,
I feel as if I'm in my own little corner of Switzerland.
By then 1,700 prefabs were left, out of the original 4,625 built in
Birmingham. In August 1978 a five-year programme of demolition of all the
rest (1,250 by then) was released by the Housing Committee. The storm of
protest was such that by October Councillor George Canning, formerly
Chairman of the Committee, was supporting withdrawal of
the demolition schedule, and asking for demolition only with consent of the
tenants. The dispute rumbled on until the summer of 1980, when all but 17 of
the city's remaining prefabs had their death-sentence confirmed.
The only ones
still standing in Birmingham are on Wake Green Road in Hall Green, near Brook
Lane. They are of the rare Phoenix type, and that is why they were
reprieved. In late 1980 a £45,000 refurbishment programme was undertaken,
involving rewiring, improvements to the insulation of roofs and walls, and
any other repairs that were necessary. They became Grade II listed
buildings in January 1998, and are nationally important. Curiously, listing
may have happened because the tenants complained that the Council was
planning to replace the corrugated asbestos roofs with new ones without
chimney pots, and English Heritage were then called in.
Phoenix prefab, Wake Green Road |
