ABSTRACT
The Housing Act of 1949 made improvement grants available for houses which, after improvement, would have an expected life of thirty years or more. The success of the new scheme was marred, however, by the low take up in the privately rented sector (where housing conditions were the worst). The main thrusts of the ‘better housing campaign’ were effectively with slum clearance and improvements. It had been hoped that an increase in the return allowed to landlords (from 8 to 1212 per cent of his share of the cost) would encourage improvement, but the real problems were much deeper. Though the principle of compulsion was accepted in relation to such areas, the remarkably cumbersome procedures imposed upon local authorities almost guaranteed that the principle would only rarely be applied. After advertising the declaration of an improvement area, the next step was for the local authority to select those tenanted dwellings which could be improved at reasonable expense to this standard.
