Council estates

Public housing in the United Kingdom provides the largest proportion of rented accommodation in the country. Houses built for public or social housing use are built by local authorities and collectively known as council houses. Before 1865 housing for the poor was provided solely by the private sector. Council houses were built on council estates, where frequently other amenities like schools and shops were provided. From the 1950s blocks of flats and three or four storey blocks of maisonnettes were widely built too. Flats and houses were also built in mixed estates.

Council homes were built to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at reasonable rents to primarily working-class people. Public housing in the mid-20th century included many large suburban "council estates" and numerous urban developments featuring tower blocks. Many of these developments did not live up to the hopes of their supporters, and now suffer from urban blight.

In 1979, the role of council housing was to change. Housing stock has been sold off through Right to Buy legislation, and new social housing has mainly been developed and managed by housing associations. A substantial part of the UK population still lives in council housing, in 2010 this was about 17% of UK households. Approximately 55% of the country's social housing stock is owned by local authorities (of which 15% is managed on a day-to-day basis by arms-length management organisations, rather than the authority), and 45% by housing associations. In Scotland, council estates are known as schemes.

The history of public housing is the history of the housing of the poor. Even that statement is controversial, as before 1890 the state was not involved in housing policy. Public housing became needed to provide homes fit for heroes in 1919, then to enable slum clearance. Standards were set to ensure high quality homes. The Labour politician, Aneurin Bevan passionately believed that council houses should be provided for all, while the Conservative politician Harold Macmillan saw council housing "as a stepping stone to home ownership". The Labour government of Harold Wilson built houses and flats to the point where there was a surplus in the late 1960s. The Conservative government of Thatcher transferred the public housing stock to the private sector to the point where councils had to rent back their own houses to house the homeless, with the right to buy scheme being introduced in 1979 and the millionth council house being sold within seven years.

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