CDA: The Comprehensive Development Area

The initial idea for post-War Spon End, laid out by Chief Architect Donald Gibson in the 1951 Coventry Development Plan, contained a scheme for low- and medium-rise flats and maisonettes. Gibson (1952: 141) wrote that the area contained “some of the worst housing conditions in the city… [with] the worst possible lightning and ventilation… Sanitary facilities are highly unsatisfactory.” The architect proposed a radical plan, in line with his broader vision for a modern Coventry (see also Hubbard, Faire and Lilley 2002), to demolish the existing built environment, which he considered to be “unfit”, and start construction on a new, more ‘orderly’ Spon End.

The idea, he had in mind, was to

“redevelop the area mainly for residential purposes… Residential development will consist of two storey houses and multi-storeyed flats up to eleven storeys, at a density of approximately 100 rooms per acre. The planned future population is approximately 1760” (Gibson 1952: 171).

The boundaries of Gibson’s (ibid.) plan for Spon End span from the “centre of Gloucester Street, running south… via Queens Road, Butts, Spon End, along the side of and including 89 Spon End, and then following the boundary of the area within the city of Coventry.”

This plan, however, was modified in 1957 by his successor, the architect Arthur Ling. Council officials agreed with the new city architect on a more vertical city. They noted that “residential development [in Spon End and Hillfields] should be urban in character, in contrast to the surburban character of the new districts of the city. This is best achieved by taller buildings grouped with lower buildings about small open space” (in NCDP 1976: 48).

Ling wrote in 1961:

“In the new housing now being provided, large and medium sized families will be accommodated in houses while families with only one child will have either flats or maisonettes. Single persons and childless families will live in flats and it is assumed that most old people can be accommodated in flats also, although bungalows and an old persons’ home will also be provided. In all, about 70% of the households will be given flats or maisonettes, the remaining 30% will have houses.”

Arthur Ling reorganised large parts of the neighbourhood to prepare the local population for modern living in 4-storey, 10-storey and 17-storey flats. The construction followed the “Wimpey No-fines” construction method, already popular in Tile Hill, Wood End and other parts of Coventry. It attended to affordable mass-production of social housing for families. Wimpey completed the project in eight years.

CDA map from Grant Lewison and Rosalind Billingham’s Coventry New Architecture (1969)

Four high rise buildings were constructed: Meadow House, Spon Gate House, Givens House and George Pool House. The towers, Jeremy and Caroline Gould (2016: 56) write, “stood as ‘markers’ to locate the estates on the skyline of the city and, as with the city centre, other significant points on the outside of the ring road were marked with similar towers.”

A model published in a special issue of Architectural Design in 1958 (photo by Lambert)

The intention, according to Ling, was that this form “of development will give these lower lying areas (ie. Spon End and Hillfields) a new importance and the elongated form of the blocks will give an interesting contrast with the more vertical shape of the taller buildings at the centre” (Ling 1958: 501).

An impression of the Belgrade Theatre with Spon End in the background and Hillman House on the right, published in a special issue of Architectural Design in 1958

Meadow House

Part of Spon End Comprehensive Development Area, designed by Arthur Ling, 17 storeys.

Meadow House under construction, 27th October 1966 (source)

Spon Gate House

Part of Spon End Comprehensive Development Area, designed by Arthur Ling, 10 storeys.

Spon Gate under construction (source: Spon Line website, no longer available)

Givens House

Part of Spon End Comprehensive Development Area, designed by Arthur Ling, 10 storeys.

Givens House in 1987 (source)

Taken on Aug 2018

George Poole House

Part of Spon End Comprehensive Development Area, designed by Arthur Ling, 10 storeys, completed in 1964.

George Poole House in 1987 (source)

Works cited:

• Coventry Telegraph (2016) , “On This Week 24-30,” available from: https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/history/gallery/on-this-week-24-30-12075931
• Gibson, D., C. Barratt and A.H. Marshall (1952) Coventry: The Development Plan. Coventry: Coventry City Council.
• Gibson, D., A. Ling and W, Holford (1958) “Coventry Rebuilds,” special issue in Architectural Design 28 (12), pp. 473-503.
• Gould, Jeremy and Caroline (2018) Coventry The making of a modern city 1939−73. Historic England, available as PDF from: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/coventry-making-of-modern-city-1939-73/
• Hubbard, P., L. Faire, and K. Lilley (2002) “Remembering Post-War Reconstruction: Modernism and City Planning in Coventry, 1940-1962,” Planning History 24.1, pp. 7-20.
• Lewison, G. and R. Billingham (1969) Coventry New Architecture. Warwick: Printed by the Editors.
• Ling, A. (1961) “Urban Renewal at Coventry,” Official Architecture and Planning 24 (4), pp. 151-152.
• National Community Development Project (1976) “Whatever happened to Council Housing?” Nottingham: CDP Information and Intelligence Unit.