ABSTRACT
Council housing has represented at various stages the product of working-class political demands and at others the minimal and temporary interventions associated with other pressures. It has been affected by a dominating concern to encourage the private sector and, in more recent years, owner occupation in particular. Periods of high subsidy and support for council house building and council tenants have been short-lived and policies to organise council housing according to market (realistic or fair) rents or to diminish the role of council housing have been dominant. Periods of residual policy have been more common than those in which council housing has been given a major role in housing policy.
