Birmingham City Council financial challenges - time to Reset

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Agricultural slums

Agricultural slums photograph

In the mid 1960s, local press reports suggest that Thorpe had received the backing of Birmingham City Council for his modernisation programme. The city council needed to raise money to improve sites and so proposed a rise in allotment rates. Rents would rise to pay for modern amenities such as service roads, toilets and piped water.

Chairman of Birmingham Allotments Committee, Councillor Alan Hope said, ‘Our programme is to complete the modernisation of all the city’s allotments during the next five years and get rid of all agricultural slums in the city. Slum houses are now being eliminated in Birmingham at such a rate that very soon the only slums left in the city will be on our allotments’

'Allotment rates may rise’ – Evening Mail 4/7/69.

Image location: Oldford Farm, Recreation and community Services, Box 17/8

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