New visions

Governments of all political persuasions have used their housing policies to encapsulate a much broader philosophical approach to the state of cities. In 1918 and 1945, new housing was the reward for victory in war, a collective national effort. The politics of mass housing became so dominant after the wars because we relied on councils to build for the masses and councils are political bodies. It made housing a stop-go, government spending spree, a quick vote-catcher and a steering wheel rather than the undercarriage of urban development. Planning new settlements swept through communities as the dream answer to what after six years of war represented urban disintegration. Housing wins and loses elections in this country.

The Second World War, like the First, had brought house building to a standstill, exacerbating shortages, disrepair and costs that the interwar building programmes had gone some way to tackling. The coincidence of bomb damage, the building hiatus and the hangover from pre-war slum clearance programmes created a shortfall of maybe two million dwellings. The post-war baby boom, rapid Commonwealth immigration and the booming post-war economy added unforeseen pressures. Many ‘concealed households’ formed as the homeless moved in with friends and families after their homes were damaged or destroyed. The government requisitioned empty space and ‘billeted’ families on under-occupying house owners.

Around two thirds of the 11.5 million dwellings in 1945 dated from before the First World War; they were often in desperate need of repair, as the draconian controls of the 1915 Rent Act were still in place and strangled incentives for renovation. With severe shortages in every major city, housing provision of all types once again dominated the national psyche.