Housing Needs and Planning Policy

Problems of Housing Need & `Overspill' in England & Wales

J Barry Cullingworth, J.B. Cullingworth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9781138972025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134684632
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In seeking to understand society sociologists in the Public Policy, Welfare and Scoial Work set of the International Library of Sociology consider the policy and planning implications of attempts to respond to and meet social needs by the Church, Civil Service, Industry and Voluntary Organizations.

Part One

Housing Needs

I

Sources and Definitions

The Available Statistics*

THE 1% Sample Tables and Housing Report of the 1951 Census provide a wealth of information on housing conditions. Besides figures of the number of households and dwellings by size, details are given of household composition (age, sex, family relationships, etc.), the number of rooms occupied, and the possession of certain ‘household arrangements’ such as piped water supply, water-closet, and fixed bath. Of particular value are the Sample Tables showing how many households contain married sons and daughters, grandparents, lodgers, etc.

It is these statistics which must form the basis of any assessment of the housing problem. They can be supplemented by the Housing Returns published quarterly by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. These give details of new building, grant-aided conversions and improvements, and slum clearance. Finally, population changes are recorded by the Registrar General in the annual Statistical Reviews.

The Problem of Definition

The measurement of social phenomena is beset with many difficulties of definition. These difficulties arise not only with obviously elusive concepts such as poverty¹⁸⁸ and health¹⁸⁵ but also with apparently straightforward phenomena such as hospital beds,¹⁸³ and the amount of unemployment.^189,190 In the sphere of housing the two basic concepts are those of the family and the house—or, to use the accepted and more meaningful terms, the household and the dwelling. The inherent problems involved in defining these in a useful way are the source of much confusion over the size and character of the housing shortage. As with hospital beds, the amount of the existing provision ‘depends’ to some extent on the way in which the terms are defined. And just as the need for more jobs ‘depends’ to some unknown extent on the amount of ‘hidden unemployment’ so the need for more dwellings depends on the number of ‘hidden’ or ‘potential’ household units.

(a) Households. For the purpose of measuring housing needs it is necessary to know how many households there are and how many require separate accommodation. But households can be identified only in relation to the dwellings they occupy, and at a time when there is a housing shortage many persons who require separate accommodation may be involuntarily living as members of other households. How are these household units to be identified? Is a household consisting of a married couple and the parents of the wife to be counted as one or two units? Is a single person lodging with a household to be counted as a separate unit or as part of the main household? How are three students or business men sharing a flat to be counted?*

The Census attempts to overcome these difficulties by defining a household as ‘a single person living alone or a group of individuals voluntarily [sic] living together under a single menage in the sense of sharing the same living-room or eating at the same table’. This definition is in substance the same as that employed in all previous Censuses in this country—though the term ‘family’ was used until 1951. The attributes of ‘the same living-room’ and ‘the same table’ are fundamental, and it is difficult to see what superior criteria could be used. As was pointed out in the 1831 Census:

‘That part of the first Question which requires the number of Families, is even more difficult of definition than that regarding the Houses in which they live. The degree of connection between the head of the family and the Inmates or lodgers who reside under the same roof is too various for description in an Act of Parliament. When the Overseers or Schoolmasters have expressed a doubt upon this subject, reply has been made “that those who use the same Kitchen and board together are to be deemed members of the same ‘family’”. But even then remains the Question whether a single person inhabiting a house solely, or lodging but not boarding in another Man’s House, is to be deemed a Family? This admits only of an unsatisfactory reply, “that it cannot be otherwise”. And by this negative paralogism, is decided in the affirmative.’¹

With the increasing break-up of three-generation households into two separate units the implications of this definition become more and more important. At a time when it was common for a young married couple to live with relatives—whose expectancy of life was far shorter than it is today—it was unlikely that housing needs would be masked to any significant extent. But today grandparents live to become great-grandparents, and ‘sharing with relatives’ is considered to be a hardship. The political promise of ‘a separate dwelling for every family which desires to have one’⁴¹ involves the provision of two or even three dwellings for every one that would have been required fifty years ago. The definition presents no difficulties only when applied to the ‘average family’ of husband, wife, and two children. But what does ‘voluntarily living together’ mean when applied to a group consisting of husband, wife, two children, two grandparents, a married brother, and an apparently unrelated person, all sharing a living-room and ‘eating at the same table’? It may be that this household would divide into two, three, or even four units if alternative accommodation were available. In short, the number of Census households is determined to some extent by the number of available dwellings, and therefore gives little or no indication of the ‘need’ for dwellings.

It is possible, however, to make an estimate of the number of ‘suppressed’ households from the 1% Sample Tables, since these show how many households contain ‘family nuclei’ (married couples with or without children and lone parents accompanied by children), ‘ancestors’ (parent of the head of household or of his wife), unmarried brothers and sisters, and so on. The tabulations cannot of themselves show how many of these actually prefer to live separately. As Fiske²⁹ puts it ‘the Census was not an inquiry into emotions or intentions’. Nevertheless they do allow an informed estimate to be made.

(b) Dwellings. Similar, though not so formidable, problems arise in the definition of a dwelling. Here we are concerned with the differentiation of buildings into separate parts which form self-contained units of accommodation. The clumsiness of this statement points to the difficulty. Detached, semi-detached, and terraced two-storey houses and self-contained flats originally built as such present no problem: they are easily identifiable as separate dwellings. But there are considerable numbers of large old houses, built for the needs of a former generation, which have been converted or adapted with varying degrees of success to meet present-day requirements. The wide range of variations in these conversions makes it impossible to construct a definition of ‘separateness’ which could be used in a Census. The Housing Report of the 1951 Census underlines the problem:

‘It is easy to construct a definition of a structurally separate dwelling for the usual type of family house or flat originally constructed as such, but it is difficult to devise a form of words to cover every type of converted building in such a way as to provide, in a simple classification, a measure of the different degrees of separation which one dwelling may have from another; on the justifiable grounds of simplicity the boundaries are inevitably made to appear more sharply defined than they really are’.

The Census term dwelling ‘means a structurally separate dwelling and generally comprises any room or suite of rooms intended or used for habitation by persons living in private households having separate access to the street or to a common landing or staircase to which the public has access’.* The basic attribute is thus separate access to the street. But as Ford and Thomas† have pointed out, ‘those dwellings which are entirely separate except for this one requirement…would be classified as shared dwellings. It is likely that a large number of these shared dwellings are, for practical purposes, separate, or if not entirely so, of such a spaciousness and of such a degree of privacy as to render them suitable for habitation for some years to come’. This is undoubtedly true, yet how is ‘spaciousness’ to be measured? The Census itself gives no information as to the size of rooms. This could be obtained only by ad hoc studies. All that can be done with national figures is to recognize that in certain areas (particularly Central London) the Census material understates the number of ‘dwellings’. Any allowance made for this must necessarily be arbitrary and open to argument.

Qualitative Aspects

An even more baffling problem is that of measuring the quality of housing. The Census is of little use here. It analyses households according to whether they possess or share a fixed bath, a piped water supply, a kitchen sink, a water-closet and a cooking stove,* but it gives no information on whether or not a house is unhealthy, damp, or in disrepair. For such information entirely different, and completely unrelated, statistics have to be used, viz. the Slum Clearance Returns made by local authorities under the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954†. These contain estimates made by the individual local authorities (numbering about 1,450 in England and Wales) of the number of houses in their areas which they consider to be ‘unfit for human habitation’, and the number they propose to demolish or to ‘retain for temporary accommodation’ during a period of five years. As might be expected, it has been found to be extremely difficult in practice to devise a yardstick forthe qualities which make a house unfit. The Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, lists a number of matters which should be taken into consideration (e.g. repair, stability, freedom from damp), but a house is to be deemed unfit only if ‘it is so far defective in one or more of the said matters that it is not reasonably suitable for occupation in that condition’.* This can only be a matter of judgement. Further, the estimates ‘represent the best conclusions which local authorities have been able to reach in the light of their local circumstances. There is a considerable variation in the information on which they are based’. Finally, these estimates relate only to houses which are so unfit that they should be demolished; no figures are available of the number of houses which are in an only slightly better condition and which need extensive repairs.†

Such is the nature of the available statistics. It is apparent that any estimate of need based on them must make certain assumptions concerning either their reliability or their meaning—and in some cases, both.

* For a fuller discussion of housing statistics and their limitations see the author’s paper on ‘The Measurement of Housing Need’.23

* And since we are not concerned with what the Census terms ‘non-private households’—those living in institutions, hotels, etc.—how is the line to be drawn between private households containing a number of lodgers and non-private households of the small boarding-house type?

* Caravans, houseboats, etc. were treated as dwellings if occupied on Census night but not otherwise. In 1951 these totalled 31,535 and formed 0.25% of all dwellings.

† P.Ford and C.J.Thomas, Housing Targets—The Third Report o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Housing Needs
• Part Two: Planning Policy
• Appendix: Local Authorities in the Greater London Planning Region, the Abercrombie Plan Region, and the ‘Metropolitan Region’
• Bibliography
• Index