| V.D.S. Introduction | Parish Council |
| 1.0 Forward |
| Members of the local community have come together to develop this document so that it may help shape future development in the parish of Lickey and Blackwell. The purpose of this document is to describe the qualities and characteristics that people value in their village and its surroundings, and so influence local planners and developers towards more sympathetic development. |
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| Figure 1 -St. Catherine's Road. |
Until the last hundred years Lickey and Blackwell were small rural communities. Since then development has come about mainly because of their closeness to Birmingham. In 1834 the building of the Birmingham to Gloucester Railway opened up rural Worcestershire to commuters from the industrial city .Rich businessmen came to live in the area (notably Barrow Cadbury in Blackwell & Lord Austin in Lickey) and this trend grew. The following quotations elaborate:
"The close proximity of Birmingham is reflected in one of the major distinguishing features of the region. its extensive and scattered pattern of residential development. Its varied relief makes it an area of considerable scenic attraction and this, combined with the advantage of nearness to the city, renders the whole district very desirable to those urban workers who are sufficiently well-to-do to be able to afford a country home amid pleasant surroundings and within easy distance of the place of work. As a consequence the last twenty years have seen the gradual spreading over the region of an alarming mosaic of development, both of the ribbon type and, what is perhaps more disruptive still to local farming, of the isolated villa type. By 1939 an area the size of a good sized town had become more or less suburbanised". [1]
"The line of the Clents and the Lickeys has acted as a kind of dam to the sprawling growth of Birmingham and the Black Country to the north-east of them. But since Birmingham Corporation essayed the task euphemistically called "opening up the Lickeys" the semi- detached dormitories of the new civilisation have spilled over the hills along and around the roads which cross the Lickeys to connect with Bromsgrove, Barnt Green, Alvechurch, and Redditch".[2]
This growth stayed relatively low-key and low scale until the last twenty years when housing demand rose, people's desire to leave city life increased and two motorways (M42/M5) opened the parish to an even wider area. This made this corner of Worcestershire very attractive to developers. It is in the hope of preserving the rural character of the parish that this Design Statement is produced.
References
1 K. Buchanon Report of the Land Utilisation Survey 68 1944
2 L. T. C. Rolt " Worcestershire " 1949
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