Special Rents Sub-Committee (1936 - 1939)

This Sub-Committee, also known as the Rent Rebates or Rent Reductions Sub-Committee, was formed for in December 1936, for the purpose of adjudicating claims received in respect of rent rebates and a rent assistance scheme for families in poor circumstances. In October 1939, all sub-committees reporting to the Estates Committee, with the exception of the Letting and Rents Sub-Committee were merged into the Emergency Sub-Committee for the duration of the war (see BCC/1/AM/20). The new rent scales caused much anxiety amongst some Council tenants, and prompted the formation of the more militant Tenants Associations that had sprung up in Birmingham during and after the First World War. A rent strike that began in Weoley Castle in the late 1930s spread across other Birmingham Council estates, and was not fully resolved by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.