ABSTRACT
In 1915 the government imposed controls on the rents of working class houses in Britain and on the mortgages of their owners. It thus prevented the inflation of the war period feeding through into rents and property prices. This had important financial repercussions, for money wages after the war were more than double those of five years before. A second shock came in 1919 when Lloyd George’s coalition government committed itself to building 300,000 subsidized suburban cottages, and local councils rather than private enterprise became the main provider of homes. Caught up in post-war inflation, the programme was terminated only two years later when Addison, the Minister of Health was forced to resign, shortly followed by the whole Lloyd George Government. These dramatic events have already been thoroughly studied by Orbach and Swenarton, and need not be treated here.[1] Some aspects are, however, of considerable importance to our theme. Links between “homes for heroes” and pre-war Progressive policies need to be examined and carried through into the partial resurrection of the government commitment to housing in 1924. There is a renewed emphasis on slum clearance as an alternative focus of action, this being particularly associated in the early days with the Municipal Reform (Conservative) dominated LCC. Rent controls, subsidies and a new compensation code had major long-term financial implications which need to be briefly reviewed, although the bulk of this discussion is left to later chapters. Another important theme is the new interest in town planning. Here too, although the decentralists clearly held the field, they were already being challenged by advocates of redevelopment and tall flats. In many ways, events in these fertile years foreshadow the agenda for the rest of the period.
