The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (c 35) was an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. It was also known as the Addison Act after

Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...

, Christopher Addison, who was Minister for Housing. The Act was passed to allow the building of new houses after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and marked the start of a long 20th-century tradition of state-owned housing in planned council estates. A separate Act was passed for Scotland.

Background

The 1919 Act followed on from the Town Planning Act 1909 and the 1917 Tudor Walters Committee Report into the provision of housing in the United Kingdom; the latter commissioned by Parliament with a view to postwar construction. In part, it was a response to the shocking lack of fitness amongst many recruits during World War I, which was attributed to poor living conditions. That belief summed up in a housing poster of the period that "you cannot expect to get an A1 population out of C3 homes", in reference to the period's military fitness classifications.

Terms

It provided subsidies to local authorities and aimed to help finance the construction of 500,000 houses within three years. Section 41 (1) provided that the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

could build houses outside the

County of London The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...

. The provision was used to build 'out-county' estates, such as

Becontree Becontree or Both pronunciations are given as Received Pronunciation in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, but the form is prioritised (). The dialectologist Peter Wright wrote in 1981 that is the traditional pronunciation in the cockney ...

Results

Not all of the funding was ultimately made available, and only 213,800 homes were built under the 1919 Act scheme. However, under the provisions of successive Housing Acts between 1919 and 1939, local authorities built a total of 1.1 million homes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Housing, Town Planning, andc. Act 1919 United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1919 Public housing in the United Kingdom Local government legislation in England and Wales Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning England and Wales Public housing in England 1919 in England 1919 in Wales United Kingdom planning law Housing in the United Kingdom

Background

Terms

Results

See also

References