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VOLUME 1: Growing Between The Cracks
HOMES FOR PEOPLE:
THE CONTOURS OF SOCIAL HOUSING IN ENGLAND
Tom Snell
1919
Homes for Heroes
The interwar years marked the inception of government-planned social housing. The men who returned from Flanders’ fields were to be built houses, under Prime Minister Lloyd-George’s edict to construct “homes for heroes” who had fought in the Great War.
What had previously been a private enterprise was brought under control of the state. Housing became a national responsibility, delegated from the Liberal government to local authorities across the country. The 1919 Housing Act enabled local councils to build a home for those who had served King and Country in the trenches, developing new housing and rented accommodation for working people and their families.
213,000 homes were completed under the Act’s provision. The demand for post-war housing lit the touch paper for later developments, irrevocably changing the housing system in England. The 1919 Act became a blueprint for later housing acts of the interwar years. Once England emerged from the economic slump of the 1920s, further Government-subsidised projects saw a total of 1.1 million homes built between the blight of the two world wars.
1945
The Age of the Council House
While the great powers of the world tussled for hegemony over a new Europe, the ‘age of the council house’ was taking shape in England. The destruction of the Blitz necessitated the mass building of new homes, while also precipitating the flattening of private rented slums – a perennial problem in English cities.
Under Clement Attlee’s ‘homes for all’ policy, the post-war Labour government gripped the need for new housing with vigour. More than a million homes were built in the six years after the war, 80% of which were council houses. Across the country, 150,000 prefabricated houses were speedily erected – colloquially known as ‘prefabs’, and of dubious durability.
In cities, the construction of new-build council designs in the cracks left by the Blitz created an incongruous patchwork of housing. Outside of England’s metropoles, new purpose-built towns were artificially erected under the 1946 New Towns Act. Stevenage and Harlow sprung out of the countryside, to reduce perceived overcrowding in cities.
1980
Right to Buy (?)
Three and a half decades after WWII, the council house was ingrained in the fabric of the built environment. 4.4 million social homes had been built by both local authorities and housing associations, at an average of 126,000 every year.
But Thatcher’s ideological verve in her first full year in power would drastically disrupt the rhythms of social housing. She sought to realise the long-held Conservative dream of a ‘property-owning democracy’. The 1980 Right to Buy empowered people to buy their council property at huge discount, accelerating the existing trend of working families taking their council houses into private ownership.
More than 150,000 council houses were sold off in 1980-81 alone. Thatcher celebrated with cups of tea in the living rooms of those who were now on the housing ladder, toasting a scheme which would see two million tenants buy their homes from local authorities.
There was little foresight of the policy’s long-term impact. While rates of home ownership spiked from 55% to 67% under Thatcher’s premiership, house prices rose further and faster – almost trebling in the same period.
2010
Austerity
The trends set in motion in the 1980s had run their course by 2010. The degradation of societal perceptions of social housing was complete. Those on middle incomes sold up and moved out, with council developments becoming intimately associated with drug use, unemployment, and crime in the eyes of Middle England.
In the first year of David Cameron’s coalition government, new house building in England fell to 122,000 homes – the lowest level witnessed since the 1920s. The financial crash and ensuing austerity stunted plans for any comprehensive building projects by Government or local authorities. Investment in social rented housing was immediately cut by two-thirds by the new government. The supply of social housing fell dramatically. The majority of social homes built either side of the millennium was completed by housing associations, rather than councils.
2024
Widening Cracks
With dwindling supply and rising demand, the squeeze on social housing has become a stranglehold. Currently, more than a million people in England are on council waiting lists for social accommodation.
Political parties continue to set headline goals for housebuilding, eager to placate voters who are experiencing a housing crisis first hand. The Tories pledged to build one million homes in this Parliament, which they claim to be on track to hit. If elected, Labour has promised to build one and a half million homes in five years, bulldozing red tape around planning permission. The Liberal Democrats are the only party who have set a national target for building social homes.
The question of where and how to build more homes has held back housebuilding. Large-scale developments have been halted by staunch pockets of nimbyism – the ‘not in my back yard’ mentality. The Government watered down its housebuilding targets for local authorities after a revolt by its own MPs, many of whom sought to protect the landscape in their rural constituencies.
01: Soliders returning from war (1918)
02: Neave Brown - Alexander Palace Road Estate, London (1971)
03: Margaret Thatcher having cups of tea in the kitchen of a council home - campaigning the 'success of right to buy. (1980)
04:Peter Barber - Edgewood Mews (2022)
05: Modular Housing Construction.
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