Plotlands (land Development)

Plotlands were areas of cheap British farmland, including along the coast and rivers, which, between the 1890s and 1939, were divided and sold for holiday homes or as smallholdings. Described as "a makeshift world of shacks and shanties, scattered unevenly in plots of varying size and shape, with unmade roads and little in the way of services" plotland developments gave the economically disadvantaged the opportunity to "take their own place in the sun". Inhabitants were known as "plotlanders".

History

The peak of plotland development was between the wars. Immediately after WWI there was a "dire shortage" of housing, so people used obsolete army huts, converted buses, caravans, railway carriages, coal barges, and kit-built wooden chalets
to create "temporary shanties", taking advantage of the "depressed prices of agricultural land and the absence of planning controls."

In 1927 playwright H.F. Maltby (1880–1963) wrote a play ''What Might Happen: A Piece of Extravagance in 3 Acts'' satirising life in the plotlands where Maltby "imagined a future in which former aristocrats live in abject poverty in leaking railway carriages or former army huts."

Until at least 1939, most plotlands developed without services: no mains electricity, street lighting, water, sewage or tarmacked roads. During WWII, plotlands became popular as a place to shelter away from vulnerable cities, such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and Hull.

Locations

Plotland locations included:
Callow Green, Canvey Island, Hardwick Wood, Humberston Fitties, Isle of Sheppey, Jaywick Sands, Central Park, Peacehaven, Pitsea, Point Clear, Ram Hill, Rochester Park and Garden Suburb, Rye Bay, Selsey Peninsula, Saltdean, Shotgate, Vange Hill and Woodingdean.

People from the West Midlands would travel to the Severn Valley and North Wales, those from Glasgow would go to the Ayrshire coast, and those from West Riding cities would travel to the Yorkshire coast and the Humber estuary.

Preservation and future

The '' Haven Plotlands Museum'' in Basildon is a plotland house now owned by the Essex Wildlife Trust.

The Humberston Fitties plotlands in Lincolnshire were declared a conservation area in 2017.

The ''York Plotlands Association'' is "campaigning to update the model of plotland development which was (more or less) outlawed by the 1947 Planning Act" for people planning to build their own home on their own plot.

Gallery

File: The Haven, Dunton Plotlands Museum - geograph.org.uk - 2775060.jpg, The Haven Dunton Plotlands Museum
File: Inside The Haven - geograph.org.uk - 1375119.jpg, Inside The Haven, Dunton Plotlands Museum
File: Humberston Fitties Homes - geograph.org.uk - 2615962.jpg, Humberston Fitties, Lincolnshire
File: Humberston Fitties Homes - geograph.org.uk - 2615991.jpg, Humberston Fitties, Lincolnshire
File: Humberston Fitties Homes - geograph.org.uk - 2615958.jpg, Humberston Fitties, Lincolnshire

See also

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References

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Urban planning
Types of towns
Neighbourhoods by type
Real estate terminology