ABSTRACT
When attention is turned to the families who are currently living in the 334 million council houses it must be remembered that a considerable number of them will have been council tenants for a very long time. Most council houses contain four or five rooms and so there is a remarkably high density of occupation. Council tenants differ from other tenure groups in the frequency with which they change their houses and in their ‘satisfaction’ with their accommodation. The selection procedures of local housing authorities vary far too widely to allow a picture to be given of a ‘representative’ scheme. At one extreme a local authority may select its tenants simply on the basis of length of time on the waiting list and the availability of houses of the required type. Local authorities frequently have stringent rules concerning the size of dwellings which should be allocated to families of different sizes.
