Mitcham and Tooting Advertiser
Thursday, 7th July 1955

TWO THOUSAND HOUSES – AND NOBODY NOTICED

Housing chairman unable to give Phipps Bridge date

‘Impossible to say when work will start’

Mitcham Council have built their 2,000th post-war permanent home – but no one realised it at the time.

It happened a few weeks ago. Calculations show that the 2,000th home is a flat on the Ravensbury Estate.

When the town’s 1,000th post-war home was opend at Pollards Hill several years ago, there was a special celebration to mark the event.

Up to date, 2,128 permanent houses have been provided by the council since 1945. In addition, 345 temporary Arcon bungalows were erected shortly after the war, as well as 107 short-term hutments.

Now, the council are waiting to go ahead with their big Phipps Bridge redevelopment programme. They plan to build 636 new flats and houses at a cost of more than £1.75 million on land at present occupied by the closed-down dust destructor and old property.

Planning problems

Ald. Fido said it was impossible to say when work would start. There had been delays because of planning problems. It had been hoped to obtain the Mitcham Stadium site for building to fill in the gap until the Phipps Bridge scheme could go ahead.

The eight-acre stadium site has been bought by Wates Ltd., the local building firms, who intended to build blocks of flats there.

Because of shortage of land the council’s future building plans – apart from Phipps Bridge – are restricted to one or two small sites such as Pitcairn Road where 17 flats and houses are to be built, and Inglemere Road where a dozen flats are to go up.

Work in progress

A number of old people’s bungalows and flats are being, or will be, built on existing estates. These include 17 cottage flats on the Short Bolstead Estate, where work should start soon. The Elm Nursery Estate will be completed when 20 homes for old people have been erected, and work is in progress on 36 more at the Glebe Estate.

In addition Mitcham has 184 flats under construction at the Banstead joint housing estate.

The 2,500th home was celebrated in 1956, see Completion of 2,500th Post-War Dwelling

See also this Engineering website about the Arcon design, and this website for details about Nissen huts, or ‘hutments’.