RAISING THE ROOF

It's been a couple of weeks since we asked North Lincolnshire Homes for details about the money being invested in re-roofing houses in Woodbine Avenue, Central Square and West Square. Nothing has reached the Brigg Blog "in box" so we'll press ahead without the facts and figures and hope to bring you them later, should they be made available. You shouldn't use the phrase "council houses" these days, as it's not an accurate way to describe such properties. However, no-one can re-write history and the homes in all three streets were built for Brigg Urban District Council, not long after the First World War. They were modernised in 1973/4, some families getting inside toilets for the first time, plus central heating. Quite a few were sold off to long-standing tenants during Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Right to Buy campaign, taking them out of the ownership of Glanford Borough Council. But many continued to be rented through the era of North Lincolnshire Council and then came under the control of North Lincolnshire Homes. It's good to see investment being made in these properties, despite some being among the oldest (FORMER) council houses in the district. Brigg's main council house estates, of course, were:
1) Central Square/West Square/East Parade/Hawthorn Avenue.
2) Newlands - Ash Grove, Birch Avenue, Cherry Tree Avenue, Almond Grove, Elm Way.
3) Spring Bank/Northern Avenue, Sunningdale Avenue, Davy Crescent/Atkinson Avenue, South View Avenue, Highfield Grove (later enlarged with Horstead Avenue, Western Avenue, building going on into the 1960s).
Post-war we also gained the prefabs in Ancholme Gardens and Woodbine Grove (built as a temporary measure and long since demolished).
Many folk moved to Newlands, either side of the Second World War, from small two up, two down properties in the courts and alleyways running off Wrawby Street, which were then demolished to allow redevelopment.
As kids in the 1960s we always called the Spring Bank estate "The New Houses" which seems strange now, given their age.
Having lived in a Woodbine Grove prefab, a three-bedroomed terraced house in Central Square and right through the UDC's refurbishment scheme of the mid-1970s, I feel well qualified to pen these notes on the history of council houses in the town.
Could it be another BASH local history talk in the making?

The refurbishment scheme was horrendous. Imagine living within what amounted to a building site, especially if you were supposed to be preparing for important school exams. It's worth a BASH talk all of its own. Other folk, from other streets, would be able to add their own memories to mine. The great Ted Dodd did us proud one week, with a hard-hitting story in the Lincolnshire Times. But the UDC was on its way out, to be replaced by the new Glanford authority.