The Prefabs

The Prefabs

Near to where I live, there is a group of small houses. They are bungalows– that is, they are single- storey houses. There are gardens in front of the houses, and behind them; and most of the gardens are well- kept. There is something unusual about the houses, however. Most houses in this part of England are built of brick. These houses, however, are built of cement mixed with asbestos. They are what we call“ prefabs”, or prefabricated houses, and they have an interesting history.

At the end of the Second World War, there was a serious shortage of houses in Britain. Tens of thousands of homes had been destroyed by bombing. It was also necessary to find homes for all the servicemen returning from the war. The government decided to build500,000 new houses to solve the problem. They thought it would be too slow and expensive to build proper brick houses, so they decided to build prefabricated houses instead. Prefabricated houses are made in sections in a factory. The house- builders then take the sections by lorry to the place where the houses are to be built, and fix them together. Houses of this sort are common in many other countries such as the United States. But they are very unusual in Britain. The government explained that the new prefabs would only be temporary. They would be taken down after10 or15 years, and proper houses would replace them.

The prefab building programme started in the final months of the war. German and Italian prisoners of war built some of the first houses. Factories which had previously built military equipment were used to make the sections for the houses. In some cases, they used aluminium from old fighter planes.

Things did not happen exactly as the government had planned. Prefabs turned out to cost more than normal houses, and in the end only about167,000 of them were built. And they were not generally replaced with proper houses after10 or15 years; they had to last much longer. There were problems too about very poor insulation, which made the prefabs cold in winter, and leaking roofs.

But for many working- class families, a prefab was like a dream come true. Previously, they had lived in cramped terraced houses in the centre of big cities, where they had little space or privacy. Their new prefab had a garden for the children to play in, and an indoor toilet, and a fitted kitchen with a refrigerator!

Gradually, over the years, the prefabs were demolished. Often blocks of flats replaced them. The planners and architects liked the concrete tower blocks; but the people who had to live in them disagreed. The old prefabs– despite their problems– had been better, and closer to the sorts of homes that people wanted.

Today, hardly any prefabs remain. Here in Birmingham they have all gone, except for the small group near my home. These have been refurbished, and they are now, happily, listed buildings, which means that they cannot be altered or demolished. They are a part of the social history of Britain, and it is good that they are still here.