ABSTRACT
Accounts of the nature and development of housing policy in Britain refer to nineteenth-century measures to deal with the problems of the health of towns and a succession of measures to replace slums, improve dilapidated dwellings and build model houses and model estates (see, for example, Merrett 1979, Malpass & Murie 1994). Policies relate to the supply, standards and condition of housing; to rents and housing costs; and to ownership and control. During the present century there has been a transformation of housing provision, and the contemporary description of the condition of the dwelling stock and of levels of overcrowding and sharing reflects a dramatic change in living conditions within the life experience of households. The restructuring of housing tenure has also been dramatic with the near monopoly position of private renting being replaced by a dual tenure system in which home ownership was the senior partner and council housing the junior.
