ABSTRACT
For several years after 1945 the problems of the older housing stock, especially concentrated in the larger urban centres, took second place to the need to increase the stock to meet the acute shortage of accommodation. But from the fifties onwards attention began to turn to this older stock. At first governments supported urban renewal - wholesale demolition and rebuilding. Britain started mass demolition in the mid-fifties and then moved to improvement, in the mid-sixties, more rapidly than the other European countries. Even in the owner occupied sector only 10% of properties which required major repair or improvement were dealt with in the previous year. In the private rented sector the percentage was even less. Given the low incomes of those in the poorer housing, many simply could not afford the costs involved, even with the aid of government grants.
