ABSTRACT
The period 1933-5 is a crucial one in the development of British housing and town planning policies. The divergent trends and tensions of the late 1920s and early 1930s were brought to a climax, and a new basis for action established. As with most such key transitions, the new deal was not the result of any single dimension of policy, nor indeed can it be understood as the single product of any political party. In this case, the essential starting point was the government programme, set out in the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1933, which sought to direct the public effort to a limited programme of clearance, while freeing the rest of housing for private enterprise. This programme was, however, caught up in a political context in which something more seemed to be demanded. What that something more should be, other than a bigger slum clearance programme, was for some time uncertain. The Moyne Committee recommended in favour of reconditioning through public utility societies. In the end, however, this was to be rejected in favour of a local authority attack on overcrowding, coupled with larger-scale redevelopment of the central parts of cities. After the establishment of such a programme in the 1935 Housing Act, slum clearance and redevelopment became mutually supporting policies which dominated the late 1930s. The former was much more important immediately, but the latter was to be an essential ingredient in the emergence of contemporary town planning policies.
