Abstract
UNDER the title “Sixty Years of Planning: the Bournville Experiment”, the trustees of the Bournville Village Trust have issued an admirable illustrated account of the development of Bournville from the building of the factory there by Richard and George Cadbury in 1879, when the first houses were also built to provide accommodation for those of the workmen who had to live near the factory (Bournville Village Trust, Birmingham 30). Bournville Village as we know it to-day dates from 1895, and the land and houses were transferred to an independent body, the Bournville Village Trust, when the success of the Bournville Estate seemed assured in 1900. The trust deed laid down the broad lines of future development, and this pamphlet shows the many sides of the work at Bournville in their true perspective. Housing schemes, the reconditioning of slum property and the planning of both municipal and private developments, as well as research into building and planning properties all find some mention in a book which is of real topical value apart from its historical aspect as a popular account of a great pioneer development. The illustrations of amenities, community activities, the planning of and provision for recreation, as well as for cultural needs, the treatment of transport and road problems and the preservation of the countryside show what is possible with vision and forethought, and should give a further stimulus to that growing movement to use to the full the opportunities which the tragedies of war itself now afford us of rectifying the mistakes and failures of the past and our failure to plan harmoniously either the industrial towns or the countryside of Great Britain.
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Bournville Village Trust. Nature 150, 230–231 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150230e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150230e0