Prefab Story

Further Info

Following the war, homes were built quickly using prefabricated parts. Decades on, many of these temporary “prefabs” are still in use, and the people that live in them have come to love them and the community that surrounds them. A council decision to replace them is being fought. In this workshop, held over three days at the Southville centre, we find out why.

This workshop was led by Aikaterini Gegisian, Paul Matson and Paddy Uglow.

Transcript

[Sound of sirens]

The second world war lasted for six long years between Great Britain and Germany from 1939 til 1945.

[Sound of bombs, aeroplanes and machine guns]

Relentless bombing raids by German aircraft for long periods during the war, resulted in thousands of British civilians being killed. Likewise, across Britain, the homes of people in many towns and cities were destroyed, reduced to rubble.

[Sound of whistling wind]

Prior to the war years, during the mid/late 1930s a serious shortage of social housing existed. Young newly-wed couples had little choice but to live with their parents.

[Sound of bombing]

This changed somewhat with husbands being called upon by the government to join the Army, Navy or the Royal Air Force to fight for their country. Many never returned.

[Sound of birdsong]

Even before the war ended in 1945, the government, inspired by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, were planning ways of building homes much quicker than by traditional methods because of the shortage of materials and building workers.

[Sound of helicopter]

Consequently, the start of the prefabs: a home built in factories which previously made aircraft, tanks and military equipment. [Sound of building work and vehicles] A home which could be transported on lorries in sections and placed on already prepared sites. A home which, from factory to delivery, could be ready for occupants to move into within a few days. A home fully fitted with everything a family could need in the way of mod cons. Within a few years, from 1945 to 1949, of 150,000 prefabs of different types were built across the country, at a cost of approximately £200m.

Bristol had around 2,700 prefabs. German and Italian prisoners of war cleared the sites, helped with the drainage systems, and laid the concrete bases, ready for the prefabs to be offloaded from lorries and placed into position.

Prefabs: Phoenix, Tarran, Arcon and various other types appeared across the city. Arguably, the first prefab, a Phoenix, was built in Blackswarth Road, Redfield. A lady recalls seeing the official ceremony taking place with the then lord mayor cutting the tape in 1944.

The largest prefab site was in south Bristol at Ashton Vale, with around 150 homes, followed by Horfield (in north Bristol) with 127 prefabs. There were also prefabs at Airport Road, Novers Lane Knowle, Tarlock Avenue Hengrove, Nover’s Common [???] Bedminster, Valerian Close, Walton Road, Old Barrow Hill Shirehampton, Hadrian Close, Sanctuary Gardens, [???] Street Park, Beaufort Road Redfield, Mallard Close Speedwell, Snowbury Walk St George, Gordon Road Whitehall, Latimer Road at Brislington, plus numerous other sites, right across Bristol with a small number of prefabs.

These ultra-modern homes came fully fitted, with an indoor toilet, modern bathroom, a glass-fronted coal fire in the living room with a back boiler that provided running hot water. Also metal ducting behind the fire sent warm air to the two bedrooms.

The mod cons were endless: fitted bedroom wardrobes, airing cupboard, gas boiler, pull-down kitchen table and even a gas fridge – now there’s a novely. Most people at that time did not even know what a fridge was.

All this came at a price: To build a 2-3 bedroom house during the mid 1940s would have cost around £600. The average cost of a prefab was around £1250.

[Sound of digging and birdsong]

Prefabs all came with good-sized gardens. During the war years and for several years after until the early 1950s, food and clothing likewise was only obtained by using ration books issued by the government. Prefab owners grew their own fruit and vegetables – without doing so would have found it difficult to survive.

Prefabs were always intended to be used as a short-term temporary programme to tackle the chronic housing shortage with a life-expectancy of only 10-15 years. Of the 2,700 or so Bristol prefabs, many were demolished during the early 1960s through to the 1980s, but certain types of prefabs, because of their robust construction, more than outlived their forecast life expectancy. By the late 1990s, there were still 740 remaining prefabs still standing in Bristol.

Bristol Council, in 1998, started a like-for-like replacement programme: As a prefab was taken down it was replaced with a new home which came in two sections and was placed on a concrete base. This replacement programme lasted for two to three years, and was replaced by using brick-built bungalows rather than prefabricated homes.

By late 2002, it was decided by the Council that they could no longer afford to continue replacing prefabs, so this programme was halted in early 2003. At this point, 300 new homes had been built, out of the original total of 740 prefabs.

On smaller sites, prefabs had also been demolished leaving 350 original prefabs owned by the Council remaining,

Prior to the start of the prefab replacement programme in 1998 and ending in 2003, over the previous years there had been several occasions where the Council had indicated no more money was to be spent on upkeep of prefabs, and they were likely to be demolished. This, coupled with the jettison of the replacement scheme after five years, caused extreme anxiety, not only for prefab tenants, but for owner-occupants on the prefab sites as well.

[Building sounds fade into sound of whistling wind]

The Prefab Preservation Group carried out a survey in late 2003. A questionnaire was sent to the remaining 330 tenanted prefabs and also the 102 owners across the twelve remaining sites. Almost 400 of the questionnaires were completed and returned.

[Slow guitar music plays over the sound of wind]

Some interesting information was collected: 161 prefab residents were over the age of eighty years of age, nine of these being well into their nineties. Over 100 people had lived in their prefabs over thirty years, and 35 since they were almost new, sixty years ago. Prefab residents’ comments on the questionnaire emphasised how they loved their homes but also how they appreciated the communities they were living in, how friendly neighbours were, and how they could not imagine having to live elsewhere.

[Sound of whistling wind]

Credits

Brick bungalows picture created by Terry Wha (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Builder picture created by Dhamma server (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Slum pictures created by shizoform (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Slum picture created by net efekt (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Wartime map picture created by Happy A (flcikr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Warplanes pictures created by Everything is Permuted (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Poppies picture created by foxypar4 (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Swastika image created by Paddy Uglow, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

All media not otherwise credited created by Dave Drew, Mike, Doreen, John, Pamela, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Video and sound editing created by Paddy Uglow, used under Public Domain licence.

Air raid siren sound created by Ljudo.com and Paddy Uglow, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Helicopter sound created by Ljudo.com, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Digging sound created by Ljudo.com, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Aeroplane sounds created by digitalfishmusic and ermine, freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Bombing sounds created by Hello_flowers freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Gunfire created by Matt-G freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Wind created by Dynamicell freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Garden sound created by Adriann freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Building site created by Stinkhorn freesound.iua.upf.edu, used under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 licence.

Fridge advertisement picture created by Cowtools (flicker.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

All media not otherwise credited created by the story author, or permission obtained, used under copyright licence.