New housing in a cleared area : a study of St Mary's, Oldham / Department of the Environment.

  • Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: New housing in a cleared area : a study of St Mary's, Oldham / Department of the Environment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    decks running out to ground level in the direction of the main pedestrian route. All front doors were thus accessible from ground level without the need to use stairs. 59. As all house terraces ran north-south the living rooms, which all faced onto back gardens, received sunlight from either east or west. The minimum distance between the fronts of houses was about 9 metres but this only applied to the two-bedroom four- person type lining the main pedestrian route which had no bed- room at the front. The minimum distance between backs of houses was about 14 metres. 3b The tenants and their choice of dwelling Where the tenants came from 60. Background details collected from housing records gave some idea both of what tenants’ last homes were like and of the standards of reference they used in judging their new homes on St Mary’s. The occupation of the St Mary’s estate marked the second stage of the phased redevelopment of the whole area. Those families displaced from the old dwellings on the site could not be offered new dwellings in the area as none were available and so they had to be rehoused on outlying estates. However, ‘ .. in letting the 520 dwellings at St Mary’s it was intended that families occupying the dwellings which were to be demolished elsewhere in Phase II of the St Mary’s area would, in the main, find accommodation in the new development. Unfortunately, the timing of the acquisition of these areas for demolition was a little bit out which meant that the early dwellings at St Mary’s were tenanted by people concurrently being dispossessed from other parts of the town, notably from the properties to be demolished prior to the construction of the Internal By-pass. However, it was possible later to transfer people from the Fisher Street CPO (St Mary’s) and offer opportunities to these tenants, who had origin- ally been displaced from St Mary’s, to return if they wished to do so. This was negotiated by means of the ordinary facilities of applications to transfer and no encouragement by way of circulars was given.’ * 61. Although only six of the families who had originally lived within the boundaries of the estate had returned to a new dwelling by March 1969, most tenants (61%) had previously lived within 800 metres of the site, a further quarter had lived between 800 and 1 600 metres away and the rest had lived further away than this. When asked, just over half the tenants regarded their last home as being in the St Mary’s area. Of those housewives who did not consider that their previous home was actually in the St Mary’s area half said that they knew the area well either because they or their husbands had lived there at some stage during their life or because some friend or relative used to live in the area. A few also said that they went to school or work in the area at one time or habitually passed through it on their way to the town centre. Thus only about a quarter of the tenants did not seem to be very familiar with the area. 62. Sixty-five per cent had previously rented homes from private landlords, a quarter had previously been owner-occupiers and the remaining few had either been council tenants, had lived with in- laws, or had been lodgers. * MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT Design Bulletin 20 Moving out of a slum: a study of people moving from St Mary’s, Oldham HMSO 1970 p 1 * From a note by Oldham’s Housing Manager. 10 63. Just over half (52°) had lived in houses which had been demolished under clearance orders. A quarter of the tenants (26%) came from the waiting list, and somewhat under a quarter (17%) required rehousing from the private sector for reasons other than slum clearance such as voluntary closure, house purchase, road improvement demolition, and emergency cases (e.g. evicted families) given committee priority. 3°% were transfer cases from other local authority dwellings. 64. Only 13% of the tenants had previously enjoyed a fairly high material standard of housing. The majority (72 °%) had previously lived in dwellings which lacked several basic amenities and the remainder had lived in dwellings which afforded a very low standard of housing. 65. Previous housing costs had been extremely low for most of the tenants, especially for the elderly. Over a quarter had not had any outgoings on rent or mortgage repayments. These were probably the older owner-occupiers or those living with in-laws. Two-fifths had paid under £1 a week and the rest had paid more than this. Only 5% had paid over £2 a week. Tenants, when applying for a dwelling, were given the opportunity to say how much rent they could afford and a half did so. Most quoted between £2 and £3 (32%) or between £3 and £4 (38%) a week. Rents and rates on the new scheme ranged from £1-50 to £4-50 approximately, so it seems that most tenants were prepared to pay current local authority rents, as were those living in the slum areas of St Mary’s in 1963.° (See also paragraph 117.) 66. Half the elderly households had a total income of less than £10 per week and half the adult and family households, including a wife’s wages where she was working, (see paragraph 471) earned less than £25 per week gross. Almost all were, or in the case of the elderly had been, manual workers—over a third in skilled jobs and the rest in semi-skilled and non-skilled jobs. Where the tenants wanted to live 67. Tenants were given the opportunity when filling in their application form before moving, to state which estate they would like to live on. Some chose more than one estate but altogether 68°%% mentioned St Mary’s mainly as a first choice. Some time later the Housing Visitor made a personal visit to prospective tenants’ homes and pointed out where vacancies were most likely to occur in the near future. Eventually 83°% of the respondents requested dwellings on the St Mary’s Estate. 68. Recently Oldham Housing Department has added a question to its housing application form asking applicants to state the type of dwelling they would prefer and whether they would be willing to consider a flat or maisonette. Three-quarters of those inter- viewed had had the opportunity to answer this question and the results are shown in Table 1. Somewhat over a quarter (29%) stated that they wanted a house and were not willing to consider a flat. Half of these were families with children under sixteen. Three-quarters of those asking for a house were in fact given such dwellings. The remainder of those wanting houses, mainly elderly or adult households, had little priority for houses and were allocated flats. 69. Two-fifths stated a preference for a flat on their application forms. These were almost exclusively adult and elderly households and their choice was largely met. 70. Those who expressed a willingness to consider either a flat or a house amounted to almost a third (32%) and were drawn from all types of households. The majority of these had no strong preferences, but a quarter (8% of the total), although willing to consider a flat, thought they would still prefer a house. > MHLG Design Bulletin 20 Moving out of a slum 1970 pp 22-24
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