Co-operative Housing
Bournville Housing. Bournville Works, Birmingham. (6d.)
TWENTY-FIVE years' experience in the management of housing schemes jUstify the Bournville Village Trust in their offer to place the result of their great and good work at the disposal of those who are ready to follow their example. The Trust has published an excellent pamphlet which implements and extends what we have so frequently urged of late regarding the necessity for the large-scale planning of accommodation for our poorer workers.
That we are still a long way from satisfactory housing conditions in England our readers must know by this time. Only in one year (1925) did the number of houses built throughout the country exceed the natural increase, and there are still in Birmingham alone at least forty thousand houses which should be demolished.
Prejudice, vested interests, and apathy are still dragons in the path of St. George. But the experience of the com- panies coming within the Bournville scheme (we will not detail them all here) proves very convincingly that an association of people who come together for the object of
acquiring and developing freeholds can raise money at satisfactory rates and that comfortable houses can be let for low rents. If capital can be raised at 4 per cent., houses costing £500 can be let at 10s. 2d. At 5 per cent. the weekly rental would be 12s. 5d. and at 6 per cent. 14s. 9d., which shows the extreme importance of commanding credit at favourable rates. The use of direct labour is also emphasized by the Bournville Trustees. Several of their building societies have a foreman with it' supervisor who keePs in touch with all the jobs and is able to move labour from one site to another as required so that very little " wet time " occurs (while material is allowed to set), and operations can be planned in consequence to ensure economy both in transport and in labour. The advantage to a big industry in starting its own housing scheme is obvious, for where men are gathered together in a common enterprise a basis of confidence is established which has a definite cash value in the credit that can be obtained. Money, in fact, can in these circum- stances be borrowed largely on the character of the employee, together with some collateral such as a life policy. Such security, we are told, is accepted by the Raiffeisen banks in Germany, where money is lent to an agriculturist on the joint and several guarantees of the village community in which he lives, the advances, therefore, being on his character instead of his worldly goods. We can well believe that " millions of marks have been so lent without loss," and would commend the idea to any firm or community contem- plating a housing scheme.
The holding and development of land in a suburban district has been very successful in the case of the Bournville estate. A Local Authority which determined to emulate the methods inaugurated by the late George Cadbury would of necessity have to face the problem of small returns for a period of perhaps twenty years, but the success .of the enterprise (given good management) would in the end be that of Bournville, " not only in improved ground rents, but in direct saving in the purchase of land for public purposes and in increased control over town planning." The various estates at Bournvilie are developed not merely as housing schemes but as communities with tennis courts, cricket grounds, gardens, and other social amenities which modern civilization very rightly demands. Only by forethought can such conditions be provided in our urban areas.
Mr. Cadbury's original intention was to sell the sites and cottages outright and so create a class of small freeholders. This plan did not work, however, and now while some tenants who enjoy practical Way of tenure are only weekly tenants in reality, others hold land and houses on 99-year leases. In all, 1,985 houses have been built. They each have some land, or a garden, and the various settlements are planned to ensure beauty as well as convenience and recreative facilities. While it would be impossible to state an average weekly rental, it may be said that rents range from 5s. to 15s. a week and that none of the many funds, whereby these values were created, pays less than 4 per cent. The village was an entirely private undertaking on the part of Mr. Cadbury, who in 1900 handed it over to the Trust, he and his family surren- dering all private interest in it, both as regards capital and revenue. Good will combined with good management are invincible forces, now as ever, and we may all derive profit from the lessons that this great enterprise can teach us.
Previous page
