Housing Policy in Britain

A History

A. E. Holmans

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000300444
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Originally published in 1987, this book provides a comprehensive history of housing policy in Britain from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the 1970s. For every period the author gives a detailed account of the housing situation in which policies operated, the policies pursued and their rationale. Owner-occupation and privately rented housing are fully discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on the financial and economic aspects of housing policy, including the impact on it of the economic situation. Issues such as population growth and the increase in the number of households are also examined.

CHAPTER IV
From World War II to the 1970s

World War II and British Housing

The Second World War, like the first, was the cause of a severe shortage of housing. In contrast to World War I, the damage done by air attack between 1940 and 1945 was severe. The number of houses destroyed by enemy action was officially estimated at 218,000, of which 81,000 had been built between the wars. These losses were heavily concentrated in Greater London (which bore the brunt of the VI and V2 attacks in 1944-45, as well as air raids in 1940-41) and to a lesser extent the large provincial cities. Another 250,000 houses were, according to official estimates, so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable (1). Priority was given to repairing those houses that could be repaired fairly quickly, and those that were too badly damaged for that had to be left. Numerically more important, though, than the 450,000 or so houses destroyed or made uninhabitable by air attack were the houses not built owing to the war. House building was brought to a virtual halt at the outbreak of war, apart from completing houses already at an advanced stage of construction. The labour force in the building and civil engineering industry was run down from 1,264,000 in 1938 to 623,000 in 1944 (2) in order to provide manpower for the armed forces and for production of munitions of war. Those that remained in the industry were employed mainly on construction work for the forces, and to a lesser extent for the war industries; and in repairing damage caused by air attack. The number of houses completed between mid-1939 and mid-1945 was only about 190,000, compared with perhaps $1\frac{3}{4}$ million in the absence of war, even allowing for the boom tailing off. The housing stock at mid-1945 is estimated at about 11,350,000, of which 250,000 were uninhabitable owing to war damage. The number of usable houses was thus reduced by about 400,000 between mid-1939 and mid-1945 (by changes of use and miscellaneous losses as well as enemy action).

The number of households, in contrast, continued to grow fast, particularly if there are included the potential households that could not set up on their own owing to the housing shortage. The number of households at mid-1939 was estimated in the previous chapter at 11,750,000, plus 250,000 married couples living as part of someone else’s household, or 12,000,000 potential households altogether. The number of households at mid-1945 was estimated (by means of an interview survey carried out by the Government Social Survey in May, June and July 1945) (3) at 12,227,000. “Household” was defined in the way that had by then become standard (and has remained so); and hence did not include married couples sharing with in-laws. How many such couples there were was not reported, and is exceedingly difficult to estimate from the data published; the concept itself is ambiguous as applied to the circumstances of 1945, when so many men were in the forces. Did a married woman living with her parents when her husband was away in the forces count as a “concealed married couple household”? For present purposes the answer is ‘yes’, on the ground that when the husband came home there would be a couple with no home of their own. The number cannot be directly estimated from the 1945 survey. The 1947 survey (4), however, estimated that about 7.4% of households included a married son or son-in-law of the housewife, which would imply between 900,000 and 950,000 married sons and sons-in-law. Since the 1951 Census showed there to be a small number of older married couples living with households headed by sons and sons-in-law, the higher figure of 950,000 is considered the better figure for all married couples living with others. The number of married couples living with in-laws is likely to have been fairly similar at mid-1945 and in 1947, so the total of separate households plus ‘concealed’ married couples in 1945 can be put at 13.2 million, in round terms. That figure compares with an estimated 12.0 million at mid-1939 and 14.0 million at the time of the 1951 Census. The number of sharing households can be estimated from the 1945 survey at 2,050,000. Where married couples lived as members of another household, both that household and the household with which they lived are taken to have been sharing. Table IV.1 brings together the estimates of dwellings and households in 1939 and 1945.

Table IV.1 - Estimates of Dwellings, Households, and Sharing in 1939 and 1945

(million)
	1939	1945	Change
Dwellings	11.5	11.1 (*)	-0.4
Separate households	11.75	12.25	+0.5
Potential households (including married couples living with others)	12.0	13.2	+1.2
Separate households sharing	0.9/1.0	2.1	+1.1
Households sharing, including married couples living with others and those they live with	1.4/1.5	4.0	+2.5
Sharing households including married couples, etc as % of all potential households	12/13	30	...

Notes:

(*) Excludes dwellings so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable.

At th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• I Scope and Coverage of a History of Public Policy and Housing
• II The Pre-1914 Antecedents of Housing Policy
• III The Inter-War Years: The Economy, Population, Households and Housing
• IV From World War II to the 1970s
• V The Growth of Owner-Occupation and of Local Authority Housing
• VI Finance of Owner-Occupation
• VII Local Authority Housing Finance
• VIII Privately Owned Rented Housing
• IX Overview and Concluding Observations
• Index