Improvement of Housing

• 1909 - Housing and Town Planning Act

  Authorised local authorities to begin the clearance of some nineteenth-century slums, to build new houses, and to develop town planning schemes.
• 1915 - Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act

  Introduced rent controls during the First World War.
• 1918 - ‘Homes fit for heroes’

  Lloyd George enthusiastically endorsed the recommendation of the Tudor Walters Report which stated the need for 500,000 new homes.
• 1919 - Housing and Town Planning (Addison) Act

  Large scale construction of council estates by local authorities initiated. This would be funded by government subsidies. This signalled a recognition that the government had responsibility for providing working class housing. A significant break from laissez-faire. BUT, it had to be stopped due to funding cuts (i.e. the Geddes Axe).
• 1919 - Rent Act

  Continued the rent controls begun in the First World War.
• 1923 - Housing Act (Chamberlain Act)

  Provided a subsidy to private builders to build council houses.
• 1924 - Housing (Financial Provisions ) Act (Wheatley Act)

  Provided subsidies to local councils for council house building. A clear difference to the em- phasis of the Chamberlain Act. 500,000 council dwellings had been built by 1934.
• 1930 - Housing 1933 Act (Greenwood Act)

  Obliged local authorities to start slum clearance schemes.. Many new council estates were begun in the old slum areas.
• 1933 - Housing Act

  Terminated the previous subsidies and established a public works programme of slum clear- ance.
• 1935 - Ribbon Development Act

  Attempted to reduce road building that might impact on good town planning.
• 1940-41 - The Blitz

  Damaged or destroyed many buildings which made the housing shortage much worse.
• 1942 - Beveridge Report

  Recommended the tackling of ‘squalor’ , one of Beveridge’s ‘five giants’.
• 1943 - Ministry of Town Planning and Coun- try Planning

  Established to plan and coordinate the town and country planning laws that would be brought in after the Second World War.
• 1944 - Town and Country Planning (‘Blitz and Blight’) Act

  Provided small sums for the rebuilding and re-planning of bombed areas.
• 1946 - New Towns Act

  Initiated the programme of over twenty planned towns in Britain. These included: Cwmbran, Basildon and Stevenage.
• 1947 - Town and Country Planning Act

  Introduced strict new planning laws (to be enforced by the local councils) and aimed to con- struct 300,000 dwellings per year. It stated that there should be a ‘green belt’ around towns and cities to prevent urban sprawl.
• 1949 - Housing Act

  Provided government subsidies for councils to upgrade and convert existing property.
• 1951 - Election campaign

  Harold Macmillan promised 300,000 houses a year. The Conservative government exceeded this and succeeded in replacing many of the remaining blitzed out and slum areas. A new generation of inner-city blocks of flats appeared as well as new suburban council estates.
• 1952 - Town Development Act

  Introduced the planned expansion of existing towns. E.G. Swindon in Wiltshire.
• 1954 - Housing Repairs and Rent Act

  Renewed the slum clearance programme which had been largely stopped due to World War Two.
• 1957 - Rent Act

  Removed rent restrictions.
• 1965 - New Towns Act (2)

  Introduced a fresh phase of planned new communities. Milton Keynes is perhaps the most famous of these.
• 1974 - Department of the Environment

  Established and replaced the Ministry for Town and Country Planning. It was a much larger organisation.
• 1975 - Housing Rents and Subsidies Act

  Introduced new subsidies for local authorities to maintain council houses and standardise them across the country. One of the last major government acts in support of collective housing provision by local councils.
• 1980 - Housing Act

  Brought an end to the era of collective housing provision by councils, terminating the building of most new housing and encouraging the ‘right to buy’ of council houses among existing tenants. Social housing was now to be provided by Housing Associations.