| 18 mins 09 secs of 100 mins 0 secs | ||
| format 16mm | colour black & white | sound silent |
| credit sheffield public health department | ||
| To access the complete film please contact the Yorkshire Film Archive | ||
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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PART- PARK HILL SLUMS 1-5 (1950s)
download descriptionThis film comes from a batch of unedited films made by Sheffield Public Health Department in the 1950s, given the generic title of Environmental Health Part- Park Hill Slums 1-5. The films cover wide areas of Sheffield, especially Netherthorpe and Crookesmoor, and its environs, showing many aspects of the city relating to public health. The catalogue description for the five films as a whole provides the names of many of the places shown. The films themselves often show the street signs of the areas filmed. It can only be assumed that the films were meant to highlight those areas where there was concern for public health, focussing on the old areas of terraced housing and the large industrial areas. The parts shown here are mainly of the Park Hill area in the mid 1950s before being cleared for the new Park Hill redevelopment which can also be seen on YFA Online, Park Hill Housing Project (1962).
This second film, also made by Sheffield City council, shows the Park Hill complex after it was completed and after tenants had moved in, and provides a fascinating companion. The contrast between the two films is really quite stark: whereas with the new estate of flats everything seems bright, with the film from the 1950s the areas shown look extremely gloomy and bleak. The contrast mirrors the transformation of much design from the 1950s into the more modern look of the 1960s, and the accompanying general cultural change.
Sheffield suffered considerably from bombing in the Second World War – on which see King George and Queen Visit Hull on YFA Online, and Sheffield at War, held at the YFA. But even without the damage done by wartime bombing Sheffield had serious housing problems. Of course, urban housing has been a problem since the beginnings of the industrial revolution, and that has remained with us ever since. The housing problem was exacerbated by the lack of new building for the duration of the war, and the fact that 20% of pre-war buildings were either destroyed or badly damaged, whilst there was a growth in population of one million. At this time only 10% of the population lived in council houses, with 57% living in private rented accommodation. The need for redevelopment was stressed in another film featured on YFA Online, and also filmed in Sheffield, The Towns for Old, made during the war in 1942.
The film shows an area of Sheffield that was clearly in need of regeneration, the damage done by the bombing of the Second World War, and the continued widespread existence of compacted terraces, with children at play in the rubble. The area was known as "Little Chicago" in the 1930s, due to the violent crimes sometimes committed there. The name ‘Park Hill’ refers back to an old deer park, which Norfolk Park is now a remnant of. The clearance of the area was part of a much bigger programme of regeneration carried out by Sheffield City Council – see the context for Park Hill Housing Project. As part of the regenerationthe council leadership took a tour of European multi-storey housing projects in 1954, resulting in a Report published the same year – see References.
1954 was a key year as it brought in the Housing Repairs and Rent Act which restarted slum clearance after a hiatus. In that year the estimate was that countrywide there were 847,000 unfit dwellings – a rise from 472,000 at the outbreak of war in 1939 (figures that reflect a very narrow view of what constitutes being ‘unfit’). At this point the Conservative Party had come to power and there was some degree of unanimity between the two major parties on housing policy: the background to which being rather complex. One of the initial motivations for slum clearance was the fear of epidemics, such as the water borne disease of cholera, which killed thousands and which knew no social distinctions. At the heart of the appalling housing conditions was the old conflict between a free market system and public intervention based upon need. For a long time there was resistance to the idea of central controls, of any kind, and local authorities were only established in their modern form – until 1974 – through Acts of 1888 and 1894. There was also confusion and conflict of responsibility between local and central authority.
The first step towards some public control came with the Public Health Act of 1848, although opposition ensured it had little impact until it was replaced by the Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875. A key change came with the introduction of the concept of ‘unfit for human habitation’, in the Nuisances Removal Act of 1855. Over a period of time various housing acts allowed for slum clearances and redevelopment. In addition charitable trusts and the Garden City movement had some impact, but rarely for the really poor.
Despite mounting pressure from below there was little development in housing policy until after the First World War. The Addison Acts of 1919 set the tone, but slum clearance didn’t really start until Greenwood’s 1930 Housing Act and the follow up of 1933, when the Act of that year required all authorities to produce 5-year clearance plans, backed up by subsidies for housing. Even then, local authority built housing was dwarfed by private building during the 1930s. Slum clearance never again matched that of the 1930s, but nevertheless gathered pace throughout the 1950s. Yet despite this the numbers of unfit houses wasn’t falling, and still 90% of all dwellings built between 1871 and 1918 were still standing in 1975.
The idea of urban planning really took hold during the Second World War, summed up in Maxwell Fry’s phrase of ‘The New Britain Must Be Planned’, from the Picture Post ofJanuary 1941 – see the Context for the film New Towns for Old. Sheffield was one of the cities that were at the forefront of town planning, acting on the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. As early as 1864 it was one of the first cities to prohibit the building of back-to-back houses. But as can be seen by the film, Sheffield was a harsh city to live in for many, and most would agree that it has improved substantially over the intervening years.
References
Peter Malpass and Alan Murie, Housing Policy and Practice, 2nd edition, Macmillan, London, 1987.
John Stevenson, ‘The New Jerusalem that Failed? The Rebuilding Post-War Britain’, in Britain Since 1945, eds. Terry Gourvish and Alan O’Day, Macmillan, London, 1991.
Multi Storey Housing in Some European Countries: Report of the City of Sheffield Housing Deputation, Sheffield Corporation Architects Department, Sheffield Corporation, 1955.
Ten Years of Housing in Sheffield, Sheffield Corporation Architects Department, Sheffield Corporation, 1962.
