The Garden Suburb Movement
An Unfinished Project
The Garden Suburb Movement was a movement which felt that having large garden suburbs would help improve social, physical and industrial conditions in industrial areas such as Wolverhampton. As the population was expanding during the early 20th century, many people were still living in sub-standard conditions built in the late 1800's for the rapidly increasing population, meaning that the industrial town would need to expand in order to make room for the further increasing population of the early 20th century. Therefore, the Garden Suburb Movement could increase the number of available homes in a cost effective manner. They felt that open garden spaces with greenery and allotments, and reducing the amount of houses per acre would solve the issue of overcrowded living spaces. It would not have been a problem for those living in these new houses, further from industrial areas, to get to their workplaces (factories etc) as transport was more available, as long as the roads and transport stops were near the industrialised areas.
Thomas Adam planned the Garden Suburb movement in advance so that streets could be laid close to the houses, with assurance that the width of them would be suitable for transport and future purposes. Farmland was not particularly suitable for financial profit as rent costs were dropping, so these new houses would please both tenants and landlords, as well as being of good quality and of a specific standard. The houses were to be designed to suit their surroundings, with a similar theme running throughout them. The first six houses were built in 1907, and there were 75 houses by 1915.