Editing Becontree (section)

===Services===
All houses were supplied with gas by the [[Gas Light and Coke Company]]; most had [[gas lighting]] and some were fitted with [[electric light]]ing. Electricity was supplied by the [[County of London Electric Supply Company]] in Dagenham and the electricity services of Barking and Ilford [[municipal corporation]]s in those sections.<ref name="Robson 1939"/> All gas lighting was converted to electricity in 1955. Water supply in the whole estate came from the [[South Essex Waterworks Company]], but sewerage was split on municipal lines. In 1930 Barking and Ilford formed the Ilford and Barking Joint Sewerage Committee.

The [[General Post Office]] placed the entire estate in the Dagenham [[post town]], including the Barking and Ilford sections, giving all residents postal addresses of "Dagenham, Essex". It is perhaps for this reason that Becontree and Dagenham became synonymous.<ref>{{cite book | last = Willmott | first = Peter | title = Family and class in a London suburb | publisher = Routledge & Kegan Paul | location = London | year = 1973 | isbn = 071003914X }}</ref> In 1927 the LCC was reluctant to agree that the [[Postmaster General of the United Kingdom|Postmaster General]] should provide [[telephone line|subscriber telephone lines]] to the estate, as it was considered incongruous for residents of a subsidised housing scheme to be able to afford such a luxury.<ref name="Olechnowicz">Andrzej Olechnowicz, ''Working-Class Housing in England Between the Wars: The Becontree Estate'', Oxford historical monographs, Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1997, {{ISBN|978-0-19-820650-7}}.</ref> Lines were connected from nearby exchanges until the [[Telephone exchange names|DOMinion]] exchange was opened within the estate. In 1954 it had 1,337 lines, increasing to 1,620 in 1955 and by 1958 it had 2,700 lines.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1955/feb/02/telephone-service-dagenham |title=Telephone Service, Dagenham (Hansard, 2 February 1955) |work=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]] |access-date=2016-11-24 |archive-date=4 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004221158/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1955/feb/02/telephone-service-dagenham |date=2 February 1955 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1958/mar/26/dominion-and-rainham-exchanges |title=Dominion and Rainham Exchanges (Hansard, 26 March 1958) |work=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]] |date=1958-03-26 |access-date=2016-11-24 |archive-date=4 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004230227/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1958/mar/26/dominion-and-rainham-exchanges |url-status=live }}</ref>

The original LCC plan anticipated a civic and commercial centre around Parsloes Park. However, LCC was only a landlord in the area and had limited ability to influence commercial development and had no control over local government.<ref name="Robson 1939"/> The plan was not followed and [[Dagenham Civic Centre]] opened in 1937 outside the eastern boundary of the estate. The lack of a conventional town centre meant residents used the existing centres at Barking and Ilford. Small parades of shops were provided throughout the estate, such as on Gale Street and Wood Lane, but Dagenham Urban District Council tried to make up for the lack of a high street by creating a commercial centre along Heathway in 1934.<ref name="London East">{{cite book | last = Cherry | first = Bridget | title = London | publisher = Yale University Press | location = New Haven, CT London | year = 2005 | isbn = 0300107013 }}</ref>

The estate was built without any provision for [[Parking lot|car parking]] as it was not anticipated that tenants would own cars. The plot sizes did not allow for garages to be added to homes. The LCC provided eleven garages for rent in 1937 and a further eighty in 1951.<ref name="Olechnowicz"/> The LCC planned a [[Tramway track|tramway]] through the estate, filling some of the wide spaces on roads left by the special railway, but it was never built.<ref>Jackson, p. 290 and Plate 22, opposite p. 321.</ref> There were no railway stations within the boundaries of the estate, with [[Chadwell Heath railway station|Chadwell Heath]], [[Dagenham railway station|Dagenham]], [[Dagenham Dock railway station|Dagenham Dock]] and [[Goodmayes railway station|Goodmayes]] a short distance away. At first, trains on the [[London, Tilbury and Southend line|Fenchurch Street–Southend]] line of the [[London, Midland and Scottish Railway|LMS]] passed through the estate without stopping, but in 1926 the LMS provided [[Gale Street Halt railway station|Gale Street Halt]] on the line. In 1932 (when the line was doubled with the addition of two electrified tracks) Gale Street Halt became Becontree station and a new station was added at [[Heathway railway station|Heathway]]. The stations were primarily served by the [[District Railway]], which had been extended from Barking to Upminster.

Over the 15-year period of the building of the estate, the school-aged population rose rapidly to 25,000 while there were only 4 secondary schools nearby: 3 in Chadwell Heath and 1 at Becontree Heath, which meant that many children could not attend school.<ref>Jackson, p. 299: "Before [September 1923], with virtually no places available in existing schools, the children of the Becontree tenants ran wild all day, no doubt having a marvellous time".</ref>  The first secondary school to be built was "Green Lane" in 1923, but it later became a primary school. It was renamed "Henry Green" in 1953, after the first headmaster after the secondary school opened in 1925.

Another improvement was after the 1952 [[smog]], when the estate was declared a smokeless zone. The houses had their old [[fireplace]]s converted for use with smokeless fuel, which included fixed gas [[fireplace poker|pokers]] in the hearths. The elderly man and his wife who lived in Mill Lane, [[Chadwell Heath]] and toured the estate in a [[cart|horse-drawn cart]] on Saturday mornings selling [[wood fuel|logs and firewood]] (mostly tarred wood taken from the East End roads when they were replaced by [[Tarmacadam|tarmac]]) saw their business collapse overnight.