ABSTRACT
Earlier chapters have outlined the circumstances in nineteenth-century England surrounding the passing of legislation to control the dangerous practices of Victorian industrialism. This chapter outlines the legal actions that have evolved from the Nuisance Removal Acts and the Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act 1868. In outlining the variety of actions that may be invoked today to draw legal attention to hazardous housing conditions, two currents affecting the impact of law are discussed. The impact of law on housing conditions is affected both by a move from public regulation to the award of individual subsidy and the transfer of responsibility for maintenance of housing fabric from the landlord to the owner-occupier. Both currents, it will be argued, flow towards a legal response to unhealthy housing conditions which is individual, private and fragmented. The present response can be contrasted with earlier efforts to ameliorate bad housing conditions which evinced a wider community concern characterized by collective, public and locality-based action. A subsidiary but significant factor affecting the relevance of law to housing defects has been the emergence of modern housing hazards in the public sector housing stock which are beyond the reach of local government enforcement. The chapter argues that in the general retreat from regulatory public intervention, the legal actions that remain to the victim of dangerous housing conditions are complex, expensive and inadequate.
