Public housing in the United Kingdom
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. Dwellings built for public or social housing use are built by or for local authorities and known as council houses. Since the 1980s, non-profit housing associations became more important and subsequently the term "social housing" became widely used — as technically, council housing only refers to properties owned by a local authority — as this embraces both council and HA properties, though the terms are largely used interchangeably.
Before 1865, housing for the poor was provided solely by the private sector. Council houses were then built on council estates — known as schemes in Scotland — where other amenities, like schools and shops, were often also provided. From the 1950s, alongside large developments of terraced and semi-detached housing, blocks of low-rise blocks of flats and maisonettes were widely built. By the 1960s, the emphasis on construction changed to high-rise tower blocks, which carried on to a much lesser degree in the early 1970s. The 1970s saw a switch back to houses, these mainly being detached and semi-detached, as the large-scale council housing expansion came to a halt by the 1980s.
Council houses and flats were often built in mixed estates as part of the transfer to public sector redevelopment following the slum clearances of the private rented back-to-backs of the inner city, along with the large number of overspill estates vastly expanding the outskirts of all cities into the surrounding rural countryside. Council housing was core to the three waves of development in 20th-century of the new town movement of urbanisation — with places such as:
- in the first wave:
- *Cumbernauld, Dunbartonshire
- *Harlow, Essex
- *Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
- in the second wave:
- *Craigavon, Co. Armagh
- *Livingston, West Lothian
- *Redditch, Worcestershire
- with the third wave developing:
- *Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
- *Telford, Shropshire
- *Warrington, Cheshire
Since 1979 council housing stock has been sold to private occupiers under the Right to Buy legislation, and new social housing has mainly been developed and managed by housing associations. A substantial part of the UK population still lives in council housing; in 2024, about 17% of UK households. Approximately 55% of the country's social housing stock is owned by local authorities. Increasingly the stock is managed on a day-to-day basis by arms-length management organisations rather than directly by the authority, and by housing associations.
History
Public housing became needed to provide "homes fit for heroes" in 1919, then to enable slum clearance. Standards were set to ensure high-quality homes, with the 'garden suburb' model predominating, with its emphasis on low density housing with domestic gardens and lots of green space. Aneurin Bevan, a Labour politician, passionately believed that council houses should be provided for all, while the Conservative politician Harold Macmillan saw council housing "as a stepping stone to home ownership". The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced Right to Buy in 1979, with the millionth council house being sold within seven years. In time, the transfer of public housing stock to private ownership reached the point where councils had to rent back their own houses to house the homeless.Before council housing
Even in the stable medieval model of landowner and peasant, where estate workers lived at the landowner's whim in a tied cottage, the aged and infirm needed provision from their former employer, the church or the state.File:Dorset sherbone almshouses.jpg|thumb|250px|The Almshouse at Sherborne, Dorset
Almshouses
The documented history of social housing in Britain starts with almshouses, which were established from the 10th century, to provide a place of residence for "poor, old and distressed folk". The first recorded almshouse was founded in York by King Æthelstan; the oldest still in existence is the Hospital of St. Cross in Winchester, dating to 1133.Workhouses
The public workhouse was the final fallback solution for the destitute. Rural poverty had been greatly increased by the inclosure acts leaving many in need of assistance. This was divided into outside relief, or handouts to keep the family together, and inside relief, which meant submitting to the workhouse. The workhouse provided for two groups of people – the transient population roaming the country looking for seasonal work, and the long-term residents. The two were kept separate where possible. The long-term residents included single elderly men incapable of further labour, and young women with their children—often women who had been abandoned by their husbands, single mothers and servant-girls who had been dismissed from residential positions.Migration to the city
The pressure for decent housing was increased by overcrowding in the large cities during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century; many social commentators reported on the squalor, sickness and immorality that arose. Some industrialists and independent organisations provided housing in tenement blocks, while some philanthropist factory owners built entire villages for their workers, such as Saltaire, Bournville and Port Sunlight.Council-built housing
The City of London Corporation built tenements in Farringdon Road in 1865, but this was an isolated instance. The first council to build housing as an integrated policy was Liverpool Corporation, starting with St Martin's Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall, completed in 1869. The Corporation then built Victoria Square Dwellings, opened by Home Secretary Sir Richard Cross in 1885.That year, a royal commission was held, as the state had taken an interest in housing and housing policy. This led to the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890, which encouraged the London authority to improve the housing in their areas. It also gave them the power to acquire land and to build tenements and houses. As a consequence, London County Council opened the Boundary Estate in 1900, a 'block dwelling estate' of tenements in Tower Hamlets. The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1900 extended these power to all local councils, which then began building tenements and houses.
Homes fit for heroes – interwar policy
In 1912, Raymond Unwin published a pamphlet Nothing gained by Overcrowding. He worked on the influential Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which recommended housing in short terraces, spaced apart at a density of. The First World War indirectly provided a new impetus, when the poor physical health and condition of many urban recruits to the army was noted with alarm. This led to a campaign under the slogan "Homes fit for heroes". In 1919, the Government first required councils to provide housing, built to the Tudor Walters standards, under the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 , helping them to do so through the provision of subsidies. The war had caused house building costs to rise enormously: Sir Ernest Simon reported to the Manchester Housing Committee in 1910 that "houses that had cost £250 to build pre war were then costing £1,250, so the economic rent was 30/- a week but had to be let at 12/6d".The provision of local authority housing varied throughout the UK; in the period 1919–39 67% of the houses built in Scotland were in the public sector, compared to 26% in England.
LCC cottage estates
London County Council embraced these freedoms and planned eight 'cottage estates' in the peripheries of London: Becontree, St Helier, Downham for example; seven further followed including Bellingham. Many houses were built over the next few years in 'cottage estates'. Houses were built on green field land on the peripheries of the urban area.Subsidies for private provision
The Addison Act provided subsidies solely to local authorities and not to private builders. After the Geddes Axe advocated economies in social spending, the stopped subsidies going to council houses but extended the subsidies to private builders. Following the line of the railways, predominantly private estates were built on cheap agricultural land; building houses that the professional classes with an income of £300–500 a year were able to afford. These pattern-book houses, put up speculatively by companies such as Wimpey, Costain, Laing and Taylor Woodrow, were mocked by Osbert Lancaster as "By-pass Variegated". Large council estates following the line of the radial roads. This marked a further movement out of the city, first by the middle classes and then the blue-collar workers, leaving just the poorest layer of society living in the urban area.The first Labour government was returned in 1924. The Housing Act 1924 restored subsidies to municipal housing but at a lower level, it failed to make any provision for lower paid, who were living in the worse conditions, and could not afford to pay the higher rents of the new houses, or travel to or from them to work. They continued in substandard housing circling the urban core; in Manchester, for example, this 'slum belt' was about half a mile wide.