Britain since c.1900 and the people's health - OCR BLiving conditions - housing

By 1900, most people had access to clean water. However, access to decent housing was not tackled until the 20th century. By c.2000 there had been a great deal of progress in housing, although challenges still remained.

Housing between 1900 and 1939

In 1900, many of Britain’s poorest families were still living in unhealthy back-to-back houses owned by private landlords. Three pieces of legislation helped to improve this situation.

The 1909 Housing Act

• This act banned the building of any new back-to-back houses.

The 1919 Housing Act

• During World War One, Prime Minister David Lloyd George had said that housing was a major problem and promised to build “homes fit for heroes”.
• The 1919 act ordered local councils to build council houses. This meant the councils themselves would act as landlords.
• 250,000 new homes were built, funded by taxpayers’ money.
• They had to meet standards for space, water supply and drainage.
• However, the worst slums remained.

The 1930 Housing Act

• This act forced private landlords to sell slum housing to local councils.
• The councils could then clear the slums and build new, clean homes on the land. Government grants were made available to fund this.
• By 1939, over 240,000 slum houses had been cleared and 700,000 new homes built.

Housing between 1939 and c.1980

Extensive bombing during World War Two destroyed around 475,000 houses in Britain. This led to the building of further council housing and also the creation of ‘new towns’, planned and built from scratch.

In the 1950s and 1960s, almost a million more slum houses were cleared and their inhabitants rehoused. By the 1960s, council housing included high-rise blocks of flats. By the 1980s, around 4,500 tower blocks had been built and almost all homes had heating, water and sanitation.

However, many residents disliked living in the new tower blocks, despite the fact that they were much cleaner and the facilities were better. There was a lack of outside space and they felt very different from the neighbourhoods they had moved from.

Housing from c.1980 to the present day

By 1980, 42 per cent of the population lived in council housing. The Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, thought that too many people were becoming dependent on the government. She wanted to encourage more people to own their own homes.

The 1980 Housing Act gave council tenants the right to buy their houses. While this was a very popular policy with many council tenants, it led to a shortage of council houses for poorer people in need of them. There were nearly 6.5 million council homes in 1979. By 2017 there were only around 2 million.

With local councils unable to replace all the housing that was sold off, private landlords have filled the gap. Reports since 2000 have shown that only half of private rented accommodation meets the required standard. There are many problems, such as damp, mould and poor heating.