The housing crisis: postwar edition

With our current housing crisis being so timidly tackled, I thought it might be interesting to look back at some Pathe news clips of how we dealt with previous crises. I hadn't realised quite what gems I would find.

1937: The Great Crusade. 

This is a remarkable full-length documentary, unusual among all the shorts and newsreels. It focusses on slum clearance. It features some astonishing footage filmed inside dilapidated, overcrowded, infested and insanitary London housing. The five year plan to tackle these slums was something the wartime coalition government took on as a national priority for the post-war years. It's a fascinating glimpse into the pre-war world, the modernist flats being planned and the employment opportunities afford by a building boom. The wallpaper factory sequence is particularly amazing, and the national sweep of the film is so impressive.

1946: Nye Bevan Speaks on Housing (3 minutes into this clip).

Here's a very interesting piece in which Labour's much-loved Minister for Health talks about land, local authorities and building homes, and the beginning of a hugely successful postwar transformation in house building in Britain. His charisma and directness seems a world away from the kind of political leadership we are used to today.
1947: Your Chance of a House This Year.

A great piece on housing shortages in Coventry, Wolverhampton and Sheffield, in the immediate aftermath of the war.
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1951: First Citizens of New Estate ‬

Here's a lovely and significant little film: the first residents moving in the Lansbury Estate in Poplar. This was the Festival of Britain's 'live architecture exhibition', designed by Frederick Gibberd, designed as an example of how people were to be rehoused in the modern world. It's wonderful to see the moment people began moving into this modest landmark.

1968: Millionth House

Here's a short piece of newsreel footage of Scotland's millionth postwar house completion, on the Wyndford Estate in Glasgow. A good reminder of how much effort was going into rehousing people as part of the 'crusade' spoken of in the first film.