ABSTRACT
Between 1919 and 1939, over a million rented homes were built in Britain through state subsidy. Immediately following the First World War, local authorities were handed the responsibility and resources to solve the overlapping housing problems of shortage, quality and affordability. With little or no experience, they plunged into major house building programmes, and became landlord to thousands. The resulting ‘council house’ and ‘housing estate’ are taken almost entirely for granted, a reality confirmed by the paucity of scholarly activity in this area. This chapter seeks to remind us of the ambitions and impact of the new and experimental era of council housing, when suburban living was first extended to working-class families. The reality of that experience is examined through a detailed profile of the Norris Green estate in Liverpool. Typical of the larger interwar schemes, Norris Green enables us to explore, at the local level, the long-term impact of the national policies which generated ‘Corporation Suburbia’.
