In the aftermath of the Great War, Prime Minister David Lloyd George urged for the need to make Britain ‘a country fit for heroes to live in,’ where ex-servicemen could enjoy improved living conditions. In July 1919, the Housing and Town Planning Act received royal assent. Despite having initial doubts about the idea of building new homes through the Great War, Bristol City Council purchased 700 acres of land in late 1918 to build high quality housing estates. On the centenary of the Act’s passing, Peter Malpass’ article examines its impact on town planning in Bristol and explains why the Act should be celebrated.
Tag: housing
The Bristol Poor: An Alternated Narrative, 1884-1910
A Missing Nave and the Development of Private Housing at Bristol Cathedral (PART TWO)
"In RH 26, Joyce Moss outlined some of the difficulties surrounding the development of secular housing in and around the sacred ground of Bristol Cathedral between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here she concludes her study with a further examination of the surviving evidence and some further thoughts about the conflicting interests of ecclesiastical morality and financial stability as many of the houses became dilapidated and were demolished in the 1830s".
Stolen Paradise: Civilian squatters in military camps in and around postwar Bristol
During the summer of 1946, thousands of British families took the law into their own hands to temporarily solve their housing problems by "requisitioning" empty military camps. Eugene Byrne takes a look at the mass-squatting movement that swept the city and surrounding area, which took up almost all of the country's vacant military sites in two weeks from its ignition.