‘This is magnificent!’: 300,000 houses a year and the Tory revival after 1945

Abstract

Housing policy played a key role in the revival of the Conservative party after 1945. Although Conservative policy makers were generally sensitive to the charge that the party in power would dismantle the welfare state, and were therefore cautious in promoting alternatives to Labour, the approach to housing was quite different. Labour housing policy under Bevan was much less successful than other aspects of government policy, and the Conservative record during the housing boom of the 1930s had been a strong one. Public opinion surveys consistently identified housing as the single greatest source of social policy concern throughout this period. Housing therefore offered the party a chance to promote a distinctly Conservative policy during the election campaign of 1951, which stressed property ownership and free enterprise. The fulfilling of the 300,000 pledge in 1953 cemented the public perception of Conservative policy success in ‘freeing’ the housing market, in spite of the fact that most of those new houses continued to be built by local authorities. This popular image provided the basis upon which the party could take bolder measures to remodel the structure of housing provision after 1955.