In the nineteenth century the population of England increased four-fold and most people lived in industrial towns and cities. The houses they lived in were almost invariably rented. In Nottingham as in many other large cities, most working class houses were small, with only very basic amenities, crowded together in narrow streets, without gardens and often close to factories, mills, gasworks and other industrial buildings. The rents were low, as wages were usually only sufficient to pay such amounts.
By 1914 many working class houses were fifty years old, even a hundred years old. From 1914 to 1919 because of the First World War few new houses were built. After the war the Government promised to build ‘houses fit for heroes’. To do this it encouraged local councils to build houses and gave them subsidies to enable them to let them at rents people could afford.
Nottingham built council houses on a large scale up to 1939, when it had some 17,000 such houses. In relation to its size Nottingham had a greater proportion of council houses than most other towns. The houses were built on new estates, where there was little or no industry, at a much lower density than in the old town and of a better standard than Victorian industrial dwellings, often with gardens back and front. Most of these new estates were to the north of the city, up to four miles away, at Aspley, Bulwell Hall, Bilborough, Lenton, Sherwood, Broxtowe and Stockhill. In some cases land for building the houses had been acquired beyond the City Boundary and in 1933 the boundary had been extended to bring them into the City.
In September 1939 the Second World War started and again house building ceased for five years. In 1943 Nottingham City Council started to think about post-war reconstruction and drew up plans as to how this was to be carried out. It was recognised that there would be a demand for new council houses, especially from people who had married during the war and had been unable to set up a separate home because of war service. The Council estimated that it would need to build 18,000 new houses, of which only 5,000 could be built on undeveloped land in the City. Moreover it wanted to build in places apart from the north of the city and preferably within three miles of the centre. They therefore looked to the south of the city at undeveloped land outside the city boundaries.
This of course affected both the County Council and the District Councils
in whose area the houses would be built. If the areas remained outside the
City, the other councils would have to provide other services such as schools,
libraries, parks, refuse collection, fire and police. Alternatively, they
could agree to the city extending its boundaries. The county and district
councils would not however wish to lose too much of the area to the city.
In 1945 a tentative agreement was made that the city should build a limited
number of houses on underdeveloped land to the west of West Bridgford U.D.C.
with a small part in Basford R.D.C. and for the land to be transferred to
the city.
However, the City Council decided to go ahead with a different scheme and
made a compulsory purchase order to acquire some 936 acres of land at Clifton
and Glapton owned by Colonel Clifton. Eventually the land at Clifton was bought
by agreement from Colonel Clifton. However, no action could be taken to bring
the land into the City because the Government set up a Local Government Boundaries
Commission. This was to hold enquires throughout the country on the whole
question of whether further extensions of towns should be allowed. In the
event the Commission after holding enquires in many parts of the country,
including Nottingham, was unable to make any recommendations. This was in
1948 and it meant that if Nottingham wanted to bring Clifton into the city,
it would have to promote a bill in Parliament. This would be much easier if
there was no opposition from the other councils concerned. Negotiations were
therefore begun by the City Council with Nottinghamshire County Council, Basford
R.D.C. and West Bridgford U.D.C. After much hard bargaining agreement was
finally reached that both Clifton and part of Wilford to the west of the former
London North Eastern Railway line should come into the City. The County Council
and West Bridgford U.D.C. agreed to this provided that all land south of the
River Trent around Trent Bridge, which had always been part of the old borough,
and later city, should be transferred to West Bridgford O.D.C. This had been
something of a sore point as County Hall, started in 1937, was in fact in
the city.
The necessary Act of Parliament to make the boundary changes was not passed
until August 1951 and did not take effect until 1st August 1952. In the meantime,
work on building a new estate at Clifton had already started. Nottingham had
been able to make a start on building houses soon after the war ended in 1945,
first of all by erecting 1,000 temporary bungalows which
were to have a limited life of ten years. (Many of them lasted much longer).
It also used a number of different systems of building houses than the traditional
method of bricks and mortar. These were mainly at Bilborough where one system
used by George Wimpey and Company were known as ‘No Fines’. This
method of constructing the walls of houses by erecting shuttering and pouring
concrete used a coarse aggregate of pebbles, hence the name ‘No Fines’.
Nottingham had applied for planning permission to build houses at Clifton
in 1948, which was refused, and the refusal upheld by a ministerial enquiry.
However, the following year a further application was allowed by the Minister.
Building what was in effect a new town required much planning and co-ordination,
mainly by the City Council’s departments and committees Nottingham was
a county borough and as such was responsible for all local authority services
in the area. These included highway maintenance, sewage disposal, education,
health, street lighting, parks, baths, libraries, the welfare of children
and the elderly. In addition, it had two trading undertakings, which covered
a wider area than the city, water and transport. The supply of gas and electricity
had by this time been transferred to nationalised boards.
Because of the size of the estate, the initial cost of most of the work was
relatively large and had to be met by raising loans. This meant that a printed
report had to be submitted to one of the City Council’s monthly meetings
of the whole of the members. Such meetings were open to the public and press
and reports of the debates were usually given fairly fully in the local newspapers.
The council reports had first to be submitted to the appropriate committee
and at that time committee meetings were not open to either the press or the
public
The first such report about the development of Clifton was by the Water
Committee on 3rd April 1950 when £67,000 was required to connect a new
18 inch water main, 2450 yards long, from an existing main in Wilford and
provide 3000 yards of 15 inch main on the estate. This was followed on 31st
July 1950 by a report from the Housing Committee for approval for spending
£347,000 to provide roads and sewers for 1,600 houses. On 4th December
1950 the Housing Committee brought forward the first of many reports on the
actual building of the houses. This first scheme was for 1,200 ‘No Fines’
houses to be built by George Wimpey and Company. The cost, including 120 garages,
was over £1½ million. The contract was to provide for the completion
of all houses within 2 years of starting. It also provided that George Wimpey
and Company would, within eighteen months, if requested by the Corporation,
erect a further 300 houses at a cost of £391,350, to be completed in
3 months. This option was exercised. Most of the houses had three bedrooms.
The houses were much larger than most of the council houses built before 1939
and had outhouses for storage and two toilets. Some were described as non-parlour
types, with a lounge extending from front to back, whilst other were dining
recess types.
All the houses at Clifton had to have grates, which used smokeless fuel, a
condition imposed by the Corporation before the Government’s Clean Air
Act was passed making smokeless zones compulsory for new developments. The
grates were fitted with a gas poker to light the fuel, as firewood was not
permitted.
The ‘No Fines’ system, as it did not rely on bricks being laid by hand and used factory-built components for roofs, doors, windows and other items, meant speedy construction and the first houses were ready for occupation in August 1951. The tenants were taken from the housing waiting list and allocations were made strictly on the basis of the length of time on the list. There was no weighting for other factors, such as number of children, as was done in some towns and only married couples without a separate home of their own were allowed to register on the waiting list. Moreover only people earning about the average wage or below were accepted on the list, although no account was taken on any subsequent increase in wages when a house was allocated. In 1951, houses were allocated to people who had been on the waiting list for over five years and so many of them had young children. The rent of a three-bedroom house at Clifton was thirty shillings per week (£1.50), including rates and water charges, which was appreciably higher than rents of most other council houses in the city. It was also quite high in relation to wages, especially if there was only one income. Most men were earning between £5.00 and £10.00 per week, the average wage being around £8.00 per week.
To the first tenants, life at Clifton must in many cases have been somewhat daunting. In the first place it was more like an isolated small village with no facilities. Unlike the other city housing estates, which expanded gradually from older suburbs, there were no other houses, apart from the few in the old village, nearer than Wilford, over a mile away. There were no shops, public houses, cinemas, churches, libraries or places of employment within miles. For most people on the estate, few of whom would have cars, a bus journey or even two were required for most purposes. Mobile shops visited the estate but would charge more than city shops and it would cost money to travel to them. The price of the special fuel was higher than ordinary coal and most of the men would have employment some distance away, again with added expense.
The only access to the estate from the city was over Trent Bridge, three miles away or over Wilford Toll Bridge, where payment had to be made. There was a weight limit on the Toll Bridge and buses could not use it. The City Transport Department did not start running buses into the estate until October 1952, when No. 61 became a joint service with West Bridgford U.D.C., which then had its own transport undertaking, and the South Notts Company. The City Transport Department had to buy buses of a lower height than its other fleet, because of the railway bridge (now demolished) on Wilford Lane.
Thus, partly for financial reasons and partly because of its initial isolation and lack of facilities, Clifton was not popular with everyone. No doubt some relished its speciousness and semi-rural, smoke-free atmosphere, but others soon professed a desire to return to more familiar surroundings. The newspapers were soon to have advertisements for people seeking to exchange houses with tenants from other council estates.
The opening of a more direct route to Nottingham across the Clifton Bridge in 1958 helped to make life more acceptable on the estate as did the gradual provision of more facilities.
An urgent necessity in 1951 was to provide schools for the children of the new tenants. As Clifton did not officially become part of the city until April 1952, special arrangements were agreed between the County and City Education authorities for the County to start building schools before the take over date, with the City planning them to its requirements. Farnborough Road Secondary School for 1,000 pupils and Greencroft Infants and Junior School for 560 pupils were started in this way. A smaller primary school, Brooksby for 280 pupils was the only one completed by the end of 1951. In April 1952 the Education Committee informed the City Council that this school was expected to be full by December 1952 and so it proposed to use the Old Rectory in the village temporarily for 180 pupils. In July of the same year arrangements were made to accommodate more children in the Church of England Voluntary School in the village by partitioning the main schoolroom to form two classrooms. By January 1953 there were 1,147 occupied houses on the estate with an average of one child under the age of 11 in every house. The Education Committee therefore used Clifton Hall; the former home of the Clifton family as a temporary secondary school until Farnborough Road School was ready. The Hall later became a girl’s grammar school, then part of Nottingham Polytechnic/N.T.U. Its future is now as private apartments. After houses and schools, the next priority was shops. A main shopping centre was created in the middle of the estate on Southchurch Drive by leasing land for larger organisations to build their own premises. One of the earliest such shops was more of a necessity than it would be today - a cycle dealers. Later the Housing Committee built small groups of neighbourhood shops with living accommodation for renting to tenants. One of the first was an off-licence but no public house was erected until 1959. This was the Winning Post on Farnborough Road.
Summer 2006
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