Context 160 - July 2019

C O N T E X T 1 6 0 : J U L Y 2 0 1 9 23 Second world war PETER LARKHAM Bombing and rebuilding The second world war had a dramatic impact on many British cities. Seventy years on, decisions on redevelopment or conservation are being made about what replaced the bomb damage. Many British towns and cities suffered some degree of damage from bombs, V-weapons or even cross-Channel gunfire. Repairing this damage led to large-scale rebuilding, some of which was radical in form and appearance, although much was also a response to the need to rebuild areas of slum housing. Seventy years on, decisions on redevelopment or conservation are being made.These are no longer new build- ings and areas: they may now have their own historic value. There is still a public feeling that British towns and cities suffered badly from wartime bombing. More than 47,000 houses were destroyed in London, and between 2,000 and 5,000 in sev- eral other cities. Over 22,000 tons of bombs fell on London; around a tenth of that on Liverpool/ Birkenhead and Birmingham. Forty-one places, of which 18 were London boroughs, had more than 1,000 houses totally destroyed, leading to the figure of 24 blitzed towns overall.1 Reconstruction plans across the UK generally reached far in time and space, covering much more than the war-damaged sectors; the blur- ring of the line between blitz and blight was pervasive and, half a century later, is difficult to disentangle. The Town and Country Planning Act 1944, often called the ‘Blitz and Blight Act’, deliberately drew these two issues together, after pressure from Birmingham’s city sur- veyor, Herbert Manzoni, and others, who feared that new planning powers would otherwise not enable them to solve the range of problems which extended far beyond the damage itself. Thus many of the general ideas underlying the reconstruction plans, and the specific proposals contained within them, date back to before 1940: the reconstruction was not a ‘new para- digm’.Yet the blitz provided the ‘opportunity’ to realise some of these older ideas for redeveloping the British inner cities, and put in place the framework for the more substantial transforma- tions that occurred during subsequent decades. The scale of the ‘declaratory areas’ officially accepted for redevelopment were, in most cases, more extensive than the areas of actual damage, although usually less than the cities requested: 415 acres in Plymouth, 274 in Coventry, 246 in Hull, for example. The plans Between 1940 and 1952 some 250 ‘plans’ are known, although these include multiple plans for some places, unofficial and official 1 Details of damage are in National Archives files such as HLG 71/2222, HLG 71/34, CAB 87/11 An unknown roundabout in Birmingham (Image: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)