Acouncil house,corporation house orcouncil flat is a form of Britishpublic housing built bylocal authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 to 1980s, as a result of theHousing Act 1919. Though more council houses have been built since then, fewer have been built in recent years.[citation needed] Local design variations exist, however all followed local authority building standards. The Housing Acts of1985 and1988 facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profithousing associations with access to private finance, and these new housing associations became the providers of most new public-sector housing. The characterisation of council houses as 'problem places' was key for leading this movement of transferring public housing stock to the private arena. By 2003, 36.5% of the social rented housing stock was held by housing associations.[1]
House design in the United Kingdom is defined by a series of Housing Acts, and public housing house design is defined by government-directed guidelines and central governments' relationship with local authorities. From the first interventions in thePublic Health Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 55) to theHousing of the Working Classes Act 1900, council houses could be general housing for theworking class, general housing, part ofslum clearance programmes or just homes provided for the most needy. They could be funded directly by local councils, through central government incentive or by revenue obtained when other houses were sold. Increasingly, they have been transferred through the instrument ofhousing associations into the private sector.[citation needed]
An early use of the new powers was inBath, where 36 new houses named Lampard's Buildings were built in 1900 on thecompulsory purchased site of a row of rat infested cottages.[2]
Woolwich Borough Council was responsible for theWell Hall Estate designed for workers at the munition factories atWoolwich Arsenal. The estate and the house were built to thegarden suburb philosophy: houses were all different. The estate received the royal seal of approval when, on Friday 24 March 1916,Queen Mary made an unannounced visit.[3]
A programme of council house building started after the First World War following on from theDavid Lloyd George's government'sHousing Act of 1919. The 'Addison Act' brought in subsidies for council house building and aimed to provide 500,000 "homes fit for heroes" within a three-year period although less than half of this target was met.[4]The housing built comprised three-bedroom dwellings with parlour and scullery: larger properties also include a living room. The standards are based on theTudor Walters Report of 1919, and the Design Manual written according to the 1913 building standards.[5]
In 1923 theChamberlain Act withdrew subsidies for council houses except for private builders and houses for sale. Councils could undertake to build houses and offer these for sale but also to sell off some of their existing properties. This was essentially reversed by the incomingLabour government of 1924. TheWheatley Act (1924) passed by the new Labour Government introduced higher subsidies for council housing and also allowed for a contribution to be made from the rates. The housing revenue account was always separated from the general account.[4] This was a major period of council house construction.
TheHousing Act 1930 stimulated slum clearance, i.e., the destruction of inadequate houses in the inner cities that had been built before the 1875 Act. This released land for housing and the need for smaller two bedroomed houses to replace the two-up two-down houses that had been demolished. Smaller three bedroom properties were also built. TheHousing Act 1935 led to a continuation of this policy,[6] but thewar stopped all construction, and enemy action reduced the usable housing stock.[4]
TheHousing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 led to the building ofprefab bungalows with a design life of ten years. Innovative steel-framed properties were also tried in an attempt to speed up construction. A number survive well into the 21st century, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years.
TheBurt Committee, formed in 1942 by the wartime government of Winston Churchill, proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years within five years of the end of theSecond World War. The eventual bill, under thepost-war Labour government of Prime MinisterClement Attlee, agreed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150m. Of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 when the programme officially ended, 156,623 prefab houses were constructed.[7][8]
Mainly during the immediate post-war years, and well into the 1950s, council house provision was shaped by theNew Towns Act 1946 (9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 68) and theTown and Country Planning Act 1947 of the 1945–51 Labour government. At the same time this government introduced housing legislation that removedexplicit references to housing for theworking class and introduced the concept of "general needs" construction (i.e., that council housing should aim to fill the needs for a wide range of society). In particular,Aneurin Bevan, theMinister for Health and Housing, promoted a vision of new estates where "the working man, the doctor and the clergyman will live in close proximity to each other".[9]
From the late 1970s, the wider takeover of free market economics propagated by Margaret Thatcher's conservative government sought to reduce the role of the state and the housing sector was further opened for private investors and actors. Deregulation of the mortgage finance sector in the 1980s was particularly significant, with the1988 Housing Act introducing private competition into the sector.[10] TheHousing Act 1988 marked the onset of various policies resulting in the residualisation of the public housing. Residualisation refers to the shrinking of the social housing stock, consisting mostly of deteriorated quality dwellings, and the growing concentration of disadvantaged minorities in such housing.[11] As the residual housing sector is mostly concentrated in lower-income neighbourhoods, a 'neighbourhood effect' manifests, reinforcing the idea of poverty as a problem of the place which has allowed market ideologies to advocate againstdecommodified housing provision.[12]
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A landlord's obligations are set out in several pieces of legislation, including the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which applies to tenancies entered into after 1961. In summary, section 11 provides that a landlord shall:
If a landlord refuses to repair a rented property, the tenant can take action to require them to carry out necessary works and claim compensation.
TheAddison Act 1919 houses were usually three-bedroom houses with aliving room andscullery, sometimes also with aparlour. Some had two, four, or even five bedrooms, as well as generously sized back gardens intended for vegetable growing. At most, they were built at 3,000/km2. They were generally built to the recommendations of theTudor Walters Report.[citation needed] Examples are found inDownham,Watling Estate, andBecontree.[citation needed]
| House without a parlour | Area sq ft (m2 ) | Volume cu ft (m3 ) | House with a parlour | Area sq ft (m2 ) | Volume cu ft (m3 ) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parlour | 120 (11) | 960 (27) | ||||
| Living room | 180 (17) | 1,440 (41) | Living room | 180 (17) | 1,440 (41) | |
| Scullery | 80 (7.4) | 640 (18) | Scullery | 80 (7.4) | 640 (18) | |
| Larder | 24 (2.2) | – | Larder | 24 (2.2) | – | |
| Bedroom No. 1 | 150 (14) | 1,200 (34) | Bedroom No. 1 | 160 (15) | 1,280 (36) | |
| Bedroom No. 2 | 100 (9.3) | 800 (23) | Bedroom No. 2 | 120 (11) | 960 (27) | |
| Bedroom No. 3 | 65 (6.0) | 520 (15) | Bedroom No. 3 | 110 (10) | 880 (25) | |
| Total | 855 sq ft (79.4 m2) | 1,055 sq ft (98.0 m2) | ||||
| Desirable minimum sizes, Tudor Walters Committee[13] | ||||||
The Addison Act 1919, and the severe housing shortage in the early 1920s created the first generation of houses to feature electricity, running water, bathrooms, indoor toilets and front/rear gardens. However, until well into the 1930s, some were built with outdoor toilets. Some did not feature an actual bathroom; the bath could often be found in the kitchen with a design which allowed it to double as a work surface.[14]
TheChamberlain Act 1923 reduced the expected standards. TheWheatley Act 1924 attempted to restore some of them. Under the Addison Act, a house would be 1,000 square feet (93 m2) but after 1924 it would be 620 square feet (58 m2).[15] This was a major period of council house construction.
With theHousing Act of 1930, otherwise known as theGreenwood Act, the government signalled a change of priority, slum clearance.Pre-regulation terraced housing was to be cleared and the residents rehoused in new council houses.There was a cut in funding and the housing density on theperipheral estates was increased leading to a poorer build quality. The former tenants of the inner city properties were displaced far from their workplaces unable to afford the higher rents (though reduced from the 1919 levels) or the cost of transport. Stable communities were broken up, and with it support networks.[15]
All prefab units approved by the Ministry of Works had to have a minimum floor space size of 635 square feet (59.0 m2), and the sections should be less than 7' 6" (2.3 m) wide.[8]These "service units" had to include a combined back-to-back prefabricated kitchen that backed onto a prebuilt bathroom, so water pipes, waste pipes and electrical distribution were all in the same place, and hence easy to install.The house retained a coal-fire, with aback boiler to create bothcentral heating and a constant supply of hot water.[7] Thus it had a bathroom included a flushing toilet and man-sized bath with hot running water. In the kitchen were a built-in oven, refrigerator and baxi water heater. All prefabs under the housing act came pre-decorated inmagnolia, with gloss-green on all additional wood, including the door trimmings and skirting boards.[7]
TheParker Morris Committee drew up an influential 1961 report on housing space standards inpublic housing in the United Kingdom titledHomes for Today and Tomorrow. The report concluded that the quality of social housing needed to be improved to match the rise in living standards. Out of the report came theParker Morris Standards. In 1963 these were set out in theMinistry of Housing's "Design Bulletin 6 – Space in the Home". They became mandatory for all council houses from 1967 until 1980.[16]Among theParker Morris standards were the requirements saying that:
Particularly in larger cities, councils built high-rise blocks from the 1960s to the 1980s to accommodate a highdensity of dwellings at relatively low cost. Notable schemes includePark Hill in Sheffield,Hulme Crescents in Manchester,Cottingley in Leeds,Churchill Gardens in London, andmany examples in Glasgow.
The Radburn housing layout that aimed to separate cars from housing was used extensively in new towns. As a result, the houses are accessible to the front only by footpaths. This has created areas with poor surveillance, particularly over car parking at the rear, which have become the focus of crime.[citation needed] In Skelmersdale, tenants are calling for their Radburn style housing to be remodelled so that defensible space is created with parking close to their homes and a reduction in general use areas which give rise to anti-social behaviour.[17]
There was a revival in council housebuilding in the 2010s, with a focus on energy efficiency. Schemes such asAccordia in Cambridge and Goldsmith Street in Norwich[18] have won awards. In London, space standards have been reintroduced via theLondon Plan, and councils includingSouthwark[19] andHounslow[20] are building thousands of new council houses.
Beginning in the 1970s withThatcherism, the housing sector witnessed public expenditure cutbacks, along with cutbacks in other public sectors like health and education, yet more extreme than those.[21] This retrenchment frompublic housing was justified by a preference for a private housing market, or forcommodification over public goods, and by the popularity of the critical description of council houses as a 'sink estate'.[22] "Sink estates" were criticized as "cut off from society's mainstream" with "self-inflicted poverty stemming from...the dead weight of low expectations."[22] In the immediate years of the post-war era, the role of the state in the sector existed as providers of public housing aimed at a broad range of households.[23] This changed starting from the 1970s, with social housing entering the mainstream. Social housing emphasizes the 'safety net' characteristic in that it is only for those whose needs are not met in the market. The transformation of the sector from a public housing as serving a wide range of households with different incomes to a stigmatised social housing model is a direct result of government policies and their portrayal of council houses.[23]
Dwellings completed by local authorities, New Towns, and theScottish Housing Association, 1945–80 (thousands)[24]
| Year | England and Wales | Scotland |
|---|---|---|
| 1945–50 (annual average) | 96.3 | 14.3 |
| 1951–55 (annual average) | 188.1 | 30.9 |
| 1956–60 (annual average) | 124.4 | 25.9 |
| 1961 | 98.5 | 20.1 |
| 1962 | 111.7 | 19.0 |
| 1963 | 102.4 | 21.6 |
| 1964 | 126.1 | 29.5 |
| 1965 | 140.9 | 27.6 |
| 1966 | 142.4 | 28.2 |
| 1967 | 159.3 | 34.0 |
| 1968 | 148.0 | 33.3 |
| 1969 | 139.9 | 34.3 |
| 1970 | 134.9 | 34.4 |
| 1971 | 117.2 | 28.6 |
| 1972 | 93.6 | 19.6 |
| 1973 | 79.3 | 17.3 |
| 1974 | 99.4 | 16.2 |
| 1975 | 122.9 | 22.8 |
| 1976 | 124.2 | 21.2 |
| 1977 | 121.2 | 14.3 |
| 1978 | 96.8 | 9.9 |
| 1979 | 75.0 | 7.9 |
| 1980 | 77.1 | 7.0 |
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