ABSTRACT
Governments have made a number of attempts during the century to influence or impose standards in housing. In the early years of the century, the new local authorities increasingly took over from charitable foundations the provision of social housing. While the privately funded sector used to be geared to the provision of housing for rent, it almost exclusively provides for purchase through mortages, mainly from the banks and building societies. In the housing association sector an additional set of space standards has come to be widely accepted for the minimum sizes of individual rooms. The Underground Rooms Regulations, published by some local authorities under the Housing Acts, cover lighting and ventilation of basement habitable rooms. Planning Authorities publish Local Plans, or Unitary Development Plans, including standards for housing which are imposed through development control. Inner-city planners may require only one space per house and less for a flat, but suburban areas may demand two or more spaces per house.
