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Share and celebrate 100 years of Council housing

Park Hill flats with kids
Park Hill flats with kids

This summer we are celebrating a landmark event that saw large scale council estates spring up across Sheffield – and we want your help to bring our housing history to life.

The 1919 Addison Act enabled local authorities to develop new housing for working people. It followed a speech by Prime Minister Lloyd George as British troops returned from The Great War, calling for ‘a country fit for heroes to live in’.

The aim was to produce high quality, well-proportioned housing, with gardens where possible, a very big change from working class housing at the time.

Sheffield embraced the challenge and new housing quickly got underway on the Norwood estate, followed by the estates at Walkley, Woodhouse, Handsworth, Wadsley, Brushes, Stubbin and the Manor.

We’d like to know whether our residents can remember their relatives talking about life in their new council home or watching new estates being built?

We’re looking for photos that might be lurking in attics across the city – it could be Firth Park council homes in the 50s, Stocksbridge in the 60s or Southey in the 70s.

We would love residents to share their photos and memories with us that we can use as part of these celebrations. Photos can either be dropped off in a neighbourhood office or at Sheffield Town Hall reception where a member of staff can scan them in and take a few details about locations and dates. Or photos and memories can be emailed to councilhousing100@sheffield.gov.uk

We’d love to see them posted on our Facebook page ‘Sheffield’s Housing and Neighbourhoods Service’ too.

Councillor Paul Wood, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety said: “Since the beginning of council housing there has always been a need for an affordable, safe and warm home and we’re proud to still be providing housing like this for our tenants and residents. We will be continuing to build new council homes in the future as well. There are lots of stories out there about Sheffield’s first estates and we’re looking forward to hearing about people’s impressions and what they meant to them back then.”

For more information about the celebrations please call 0114 2930000.