ABSTRACT
The major changes in housing policy in the 1930s towards slum clearance, flat-building within the city, and direct subsidies targeted at households in greatest need of rehousing coloured the development of council housing as a provision for low-income households. Overall, the housing stock expanded in the interwar years by 44 per cent while the proportion of council dwellings rose from 0.2 per cent at the onset of the First World War to nearly 10 per cent by 1938. A landmark in the history of municipal housing was the publication in 1939 of the first report of the Central Housing Advisory Committee, appointed by the government to consider the problems of municipal council estates. The report brought into the open the central conflict between the two professional housing bodies, and on the whole favoured the Society's approach over that of the Institute.
