| Year | Type | Title | Published by | Notes |
| 1667 | Act | Rebuilding of the City of London | Parliament of England | The Act proposed that all new buildings had to be constructed of brick or stone for fire safety. It also imposed a maximum number of storeys per house for a fixed number of abodes to eliminate overcrowding. |
| 1772 | Act | The London Building Act | Parliament of Great Britain | Established party wall requirements. |
| 1774 | Act | Building Act (Fires Prevention (Metropolis) Act) | Parliament of Great Britain | Categorised urban houses into different rates defined by the value of the property and its total floor area. It standardised the quality and construction of buildings and made the exterior of a building as fire-proof as possible, by restricting any superfluous exterior timber ornamentation except for door frames and shop fronts. Appointment of District Surveyors to supervise the Building Laws. |
| 1840 | Act | Building Act | Parliament of Great Britain | The Act enables the regulation requirements to be altered and improved without further parliamentary improvement. |
| 1842 | Report | Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (Chadwick Report) | Poor Law Commission/ Edwin Chadwick | A team of commissioners travelled the country to document the lives of the poor. The statistical information helped the following Public Health Acts. |
| 1847 | Act | Towns Improvement Clauses Act | UK Parliament | Act for paving, draining, cleansing, lighting, and improving towns. |
| 1848 | Act | Public Health Act | UK Parliament | Act was passed after much campaigning by the Health of Towns Association, and another severe outbreak of cholera in 1848. It established a Central Board of Health (limited powers and no money). Those boroughs that had already formed a Corporation were to assume responsibility for drainage, water supplies, and paving. Loans could be made for public health infrastructure which were paid back from the rates. |
| 1851 | Act | Common Lodging Houses Act (Shaftesbury Act) | UK Parliament | Considered by some as the first housing legislation. It gave boroughs and vestries the power to raise funds via local rates or Public Works Loan Commissioners to build lodging houses for unmarried working people. |
| 1851 | Act | Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act | UK Parliament | Allowed local authorities to borrow money to set up and operate lodging houses for the labouring classes. |
| 1858 | Act | Local Government Act | UK Parliament | Local authorities had the power to make and adopt building byelaws as a means of controlling the construction of building. |
| 1868 | Act | Artizans and Labourers Dwelling Act | ||
| 1868 | Act | Torrens' Act | UK Parliament | This Act made housing owners responsible to demolish or repair insanitary dwellings and to keep their properties in a habitable state. |
| 1875 | Act | Artizans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings ImprovementAct (Cross' Acts) | UK Parliament | Carried out by the Metropolitan Board of Works and the City Commissioners of Sewers. The act controlled the clearance of slums and aimed to build replacement dwellings for the working-classes. They requested that the local Medical Officer of Health for the vestry or district should prepare a report comparing the mortality rate within area with other parishes. Justification for clearance was usually based solely on high mortality rates. |
| 1882 | Act | Artisans’ Dwellings Act | UK Parliament | Combined Torrens' and Cross' Act and aimed to improve the procedures for purchase, demolition and re-housing. |
| 1884 | Act | London Building Act | London County Council (LCC)/ Banister Fletcher | |
| 1885 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | Consolidated and amended Shaftesbury, Torrens, and Cross Acts. Lodging houses were redefined to include separate dwellings for labouring classes. The interests for Public Works Loan Board lowered. |
| 1889 | Body | London County Council (LCC) | The main local government body for the County of London between 1889-1965. It covered present day Inner London and was replaced by the GLC. They licensed and inspected lodging houses (previously under police supervision) | |
| 1890 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | It enabled local authorities to build on cleared land. The Act did not allow authorities to build their own housing on land remaining vacant prior to 1890, but it allowed them the swap land so that a cleared site could be sold commercially if there was another site close by that could be used. Housing had to be approved by the Local Government Board. Clearance schemes under these first two parts required a local Act of Parliament to be passed. Housing built under Part III of the Act did not require permission from a higher authority, or a local Act, but the housing was required to meet or exceed the minimum standards for housing. |
| 1890 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | Gave authorities the legal power to buy land and to construct tenements and housing estates. |
| 1894 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | Local authority borrowing powers were extended. |
| 1899 | Act | London Government Act | UK Parliament | Created 28 London Boroughs with powers to build housing. |
| 1900 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | Enabled the London County Council (LCC) to purchase land for housing outside the metropolitan boundaries. |
| 1903 | Act | Housing of the Working Classes Act | UK Parliament | Extended period of loan repayment from sixty to eighty years. |
| 1909 | Act | Housing & Town Planning Act | UK Parliament | Considered UK's first town planning Act. It prohibited the ‘back-to-back’ housing. It was less on town planning, and more about the sanitary and aesthetic improvement of housing and focused on the prevention of future slums in new peripheral suburban developments. |
| 1912 | Nothing gained from overcrowding | Unwin, Raymond | ||
| 1915 | Act | Rent and Mortgage Interest Restriction Act | UK Parliament | The act restricted increases in rent and the rate of mortgage interest during World War I. |
| 1918 | Report | Report of the Committee Appointed to Consider Questions of Building Construction in Connection with the Provision of Dwellings for the Working Classes (Tudor Walters Report) | Tudor Walters Committee | The report published five model plans. These designs were specifically to set minimum expected building standards and facilities (such as bath in every house) and provide house designs that would have good living quality and efficient building materials. Authorities could design their own houses, but the size, amenities and whether parlour or not were standard measures used by all authorities. It considered the number of rooms to determine standards. |
| 1919 | Act | Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (Addison Act) | UK Parliament | The Act was passed to allow the building of new houses after World War I. Provided subsidies to local authorities to help finance the construction of 500,000 houses within three years (only 213,800 homes were built). This legislation subsidised the cost of council housing from three sources: rents, local authority rates, and a grant from the state (previously there had not been no subsidies). |
| 1919 | Manual | Manual on the Preparation of State-Aided Housing Schemes | Local Government Board | The manual was intended as a guide to local authorities on the preparation, design and construction of housing schemes with the recommendations from the Tudor Walters Report. |
| 1923 | Act | Housing Act | UK Parliament | Reduced the housing subsidy to local authorities |
| 1924 | Act | Housing (Financial Provisions) Act (Wheatley Act) | UK Parliament | The Act allowed central government to provide subsidies to build public housing. |
| 1925 | Act | Law of Property Act | UK Parliament | Passed with Land Registration Act, the Trustee Act 1925, the Settled Land Act 1925 and the Land Charges Act 1925 |
| 1929 | Act | Housing (Revision of Contributions) Act | UK Parliament | |
| 1930 | Act | Housing Act (Greenwood's Act) | UK Parliament | Encouraged mass slum clearance and councils set to work to demolish poor quality housing and replace it with new build. Populations of more than 20,000 needed to prepare 5 yr plan to deal with slums. Houses created were smaller and narrow fronted, no trees, expenditures had dropped 40% |
| 1933 | Act | Housing Act (Financial Provisions) | UK Parliament | It ended subsidies for general housing, that were present in the Greenwood Act, authorities were required to concentrate their efforts on slum clearance. |
| 1935 | Act | Housing Act | UK Parliament | It required every local authority to submit a programme of building and demolition aimed at eliminating slums from their area. |
| 1935 | Body | Central Housing Advisory Committee | The Committee was established under section 24 of the Housing Act 1935 to advise the Minister of Health (from 1951 the Minister of Housing and Local Government and from 1970 the Secretary of State for the Environment) generally on any housing matter and to make representations to him on any housing legislation and specifically on overcrowding in houses and on matters which were required to be referred to it from Housing Management Commissions, which in the event were never set up. When the Welsh Office was set up in 1965 the Committee advised both the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Wales. The Committee was abolished under section 13 of the Housing Rents and Subsidies Act 1975. | |
| 1936 | Act | Public Health Act | UK Parliament | Required all local authorities to adopt building byelaws. |
| 1936 | Body | National House Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) | NHBC | It was originally created to tackle poor building practices during the interwar years in the belief that improving professionalism and care amongst home builders would produce a better built product. It was a form of voluntary self-regulation. |
| 1938 | Report | The Management of Municipal Housing Estates: Report of the House Management and Housing Associations Sub-Committee | Housing Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Health | Management of housing estates by local authorities. |
| 1942 | Report | Social Insurance and Allied Services (Beveridge Report) | Sir William Beveridge | The report provided a blueprint for social policy in post-war Britain. |
| 1943 | Planning Bulletin | County of London Plan (Abercrombie Plan) | London County Council (LCC) | Plan for the post-war reconstruction of London. It was written by JH Forshaw (Chief Architect to the London County Council (LCC)) and Patrick Abercrombie (Professor of Town Planning at University College, London). A shortened popular Penguin version was published in 1945 by Edward Carter (secretary and later librarian of the RIBA) and Erno Goldfinger. |
| 1944 | Manual | Housing Manual | Ministry of Health/ Ministry of Works | The Dudley Report's recommendations were used to write the Housing Manual. Housing based on new employment centres. Redefined density from the number of dwellings per acre to the 'number of persons for whom accommodation is to be provided' (assumed 2b house for 4 people). It made recommendations about house design in terms of minimum room sizes and adequate circulation space. Minimum acceptable standards. Dwellings were on average 92.9 sq m, compared to 74,3 sq.m in 1939. |
| 1944 | Report | Design of Dwellings (Dudley Report) | Central Housing Advisory Committee | The Dudley Report was produced by a committee set up by the Ministry of Health’s Central Housing Committee to report upon the design of pre-war council house dwellings. The Report reviewed guidance on housing standards post‒Tudor Walter and concluded that the design of council houses was lacking in variety and offered insufficient living space. It called for radical solutions including prefabrication and non‒traditional building. |
| 1944 | Act | Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act | UK Parliament/ Ministry of Reconstruction | The Government aimed to provide enough homes for each family who required an individual dwelling, which it perceived had been the situation in 1939 prior to the outbreak of war. It also intended for the completion of the pre-war slum clearance project. It provided an increase in the labour force of the building industry and the construction of at least 300,000 homes during the two-year period after the act (Emergency Factory Made programme). It aimed to prevent price inflation caused by high demand on building services, subsidise privately built houses, and to provide for the construction of temporary, prefabricated housing. |
| 1944 | Planning Bulletin | Greater London Plan | London County Council (LCC)/ Ministry of Town and Country Planning | A plan for the London region commissioned by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. The Greater London Plan attempted to offer solutions to London’s rampant growth, unorganized development, increasing traffic congestion, inferior housing conditions, and inadequate and poor distribution of public open space. Plan was around five areas: Population Growth, Housing, Employment and industry, Recreation, and Transport. |
| 1946 | Act | New Towns Act | UK Parliament | The 1946 New Towns Act established an ambitious programme for building new towns. It gave the government power to designate areas of land for new town development. Many were intended to accommodate the overpopulation from London & Greater London Authoritysgow. But others were built to provide better quality housing for existing employment areas and other were located in mining areas. |
| 1946 | Act | Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act | UK Parliament | Provided large subsidies for the construction of council housing. |
| 1947 | Act | Town and Country Planning Act | UK Parliament | The Act established that planning permission was required for land development, ownership alone no longer conferred the right to develop the land. |
| 1949 | Manual | Housing Manual | Ministry of Health | The 1949 edition of the Housing Manual responded to the need for a long‒term housing programme and called for a wider variety of dwelling types. Its designs were based on 83.6- 88.3 square meters for a three bedroom house (instead of the 74.3- 83.6 square meters in the 1944 Manual), and special attention was given to layout and grouping. The standard of housing was generally high and average space standards reportedly reached their all‒time peak in 1949. |
| 1949 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Enabled local authorities to acquire homes for improvement or conversion with 75% Exchequer grants. It also removed the restriction imposed upon local authorities by previous pieces of housing legislation which limited them to providing housing for working-class people only. |
| 1949 | Report | Housing for Special Purposes: Supplement to the Housing Manual | Ministry of Local Government and Planning | |
| 1952 | Act | Town Development Act | UK Government | The act to encouraged town development in county districts for the relief of congestion |
| 1952 | Handbook | The Density of Residential Areas | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Practical application of density and discusses some problems connected with the density of residential areas. |
| 1952 | Report | Living in Flats | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Survey and report of estates, their amenities and problems. |
| 1952 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Raised subsidy to local authorities, encouraging publicly funded building. Under the 1952 Housing Act local authorities were allowed to sell council houses, and the value of buildings without a licence increased. |
| 1952 | Report | Houses 1952- Second Supplement to the Housing Manual 1949 | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Illustrated types of basic design for use by the local authorities. |
| 1953 | Report | Houses 1953 - Third Supplement to the Housing Manual 1949 | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Illustrated types of basic design for use by the local authorities. |
| 1954 | Act | Housing Rent and Repairs Act | UK Government | Sought to encourage landlords to repair controlled houses by allowing a "repairs increase" in the rent for houses brought into. |
| 1956 | Publication | Housing Type Plans | London County Council (LCC) | |
| 1956 | Act | Housing Subsidies Act | UK Government | Funds were only made available for slum clearance and housing provision for slum dwellers. Encouraged high-rise. |
| 1957 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Encouraged increases in rent and enabled local authorities to sell stock, encouraging privatisation. Effect of this act was increasing rents, by 60% between 57 and 59 (partially leading to Labour party winning the 64 election) |
| 1957 | Act | Rent Act | UK Government | It allowed a substantial increased on controlled rent. |
| 1958 | Publication | Flats and Houses 1958, Design and Economy | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | It gave examples in which various dwellings types could work in different densities and particular sites. It primarily promoted the design of maisonettes and flats |
| 1958 | Publication | Flatlets for Old People | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Short handbook on the design of flatlets for old people. |
| 1958 | Act | Landlord and Tenant (Temporary Provisions) Act | UK Government | The act brought some relief from the 1957 Rent Act. |
| 1959 | Act | House Purchase and Housing Act | UK Government | The government's policy of encouraging owner occupation ran into problems, limited by high interest rates. Building societies agreed to pay an increased rate of interest on government loans used to fund mortgages. |
| 1961 | Act | Public Health Act | UK Government | The Public Health Act of 1961 was the statutory instrument and the first regulations were published in 1965. |
| 1961 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Gave local authorities powers to limit the number of people living in a property in an attempt to prevent overcrowding. |
| 1961 | Report | Parker Morris Report, Homes for Today and Tomorrow | Parker Morris Committee/ Central Housing Advisory Committee | The report made recommendations for the total area of the dwelling as minimum standards. It was not just about square meters but about usability. It proposed better housing for both public and private sector and for-sale and for-let. Dwellings would include storage and heating (household goods were a commonplace). More space was also proposed on the basis that: extra space is not more money as it doesn't have plumbing and equipment and a large flat is easier to be brought up to date. Government made financial assistance dependent on meeting recommended standards. In 1967 these space standards became mandatory for all housing built in new towns; this was extended to all council housing in 1969, although they had already been adopted by many local councils by then. This report was used until 1981. |
| 1962 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 3: Service Cores in High Flats | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Part 1: Service Cores in High Flats: Sanitary Plumbing (1962)Part 2: Service Cores in High Flats: The selection and planning of passenger lifts (1962)Part 3: Service Cores in High Flats: Mechanical ventilation of inner rooms (1963)Part 4 & 5: Service Cores in High Flats: Telephone installations and aerial installations for sound and television reception (1964)Part 6: Service Cores in High Flats: Cold water services (1965)Part 7: Service Cores in High Flats: Protection against lighting (1967) |
| 1962 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 4: Swimming pools | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Design of swimming pools |
| 1962 | Planning Bulletin | Planning Bulletin 1: Approach to renewal | Ministry of Housing and Local Government/ Ministry of Transport | |
| 1962 | Planning Bulletin | Planning Bulletin 2: Residential areas- higher densities | Ministry of Housing and Local Government/ Ministry of Transport | |
| 1962 | Act | Landlord and Tenant Act | UK Government | |
| 1963 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 5: Landscaping for flats | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | A guide to the treatment of ground space in high density housing estates. |
| 1963 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 8: Dimensions and components for housing: with special reference to industrialised building | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Prepared by the Department's Research and Development Group, it recommended a scheme of preferred dimensions for standardising and simplifying components in house and flat building by industrialised methods. |
| 1963 | Planning Bulletin | Planning Bulletin 3: Town Centres cost and control of redevelopment | Ministry of Housing and Local Government/ Ministry of Transport | |
| 1963 | Planning Bulletin | Planning Bulletin 4: Town Centres current practice | Ministry of Housing and Local Government/ Ministry of Transport | |
| 1963 | Publication | Housing Cost Yardsticks | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Remained operative from 1963 to 1981 with the objective to keep down the cost of building. Housing standards of the Parker Morris Report, intended to be minimum areas, would become maximum for the subsidy purposes of the Housing Cost Yardstick. |
| 1964 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Birth of the Housing Corporation |
| 1964 | Planning Bulletin | Planning bulletin 5: Planning for daylight and sunlight | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | |
| 1964 | Planning Bulletin | Planning bulletin 6: Development plan map | Ministry of Housing and Local Government/ Town and Country Planning Act 1962 | |
| 1964 | Act | Protection from Eviction Act | UK Government | Imposed sanctions of landlords who evicted without a court order. |
| 1965 | Act | New Towns Act | UK Government | The act authorised the government to designate areas as new towns, and passing development control functions to a New Town Development Corporation. |
| 1965 | Publication | Generic Plans: two and three storey houses | National Building Agency | The publication contained standard plan solutions determined in their dimensions by industrial construction methods. |
| 1965 | Act | Rent Act | UK Government | The act invoked the criminal law to deal with abuses by landlords and established a system of 'fair rents' |
| 1965 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 9: Swimming bath costs with some notes on design | ||
| 1965 | Planning Bulletin | Planning Bulletin 7: Parking in town centres | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | |
| 1966 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 10: Cars in Housing 1: some medium density layouts | ||
| 1966 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 11: Old people's flatlets at Stevenage: an account of the project with an appraisal | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The first bulletin dealing with a development project designed by the Ministry's Research and Development Group. It contains an illustrated account of the design and constructional aspects and gives an appraisal of the scheme in use (related to Bulletin 1, 2, and 31). |
| 1966 | Report | Our Older Homes: A Call for Action(Denington Report) | Central Housing Advisory Committee | |
| 1967 | Act | Housing Subsidies Act | UK Government | Provided for financial assistance towards the provision, acquisition, or improvement of dwellings. |
| 1967 | Act | Leasehold Reform Act | UK Government | The Act grants the right to long leaseholders of houses let at low and moderately low rents to buy their homes compulsorily from their landlords at a fair price. |
| 1967 | Manual | Housing Subsidies Manual | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | |
| 1967 | Planning Bulletin | Planning bulletin 8: Settlement in the Countryside, A planning method | Ministry of Housing and Local Government Welsh Office | Settlement appraisal and plans for Caxby. |
| 1967 | Circular | Circular 36/67, Housing standards | Department of the Environment | Introduced the raising of housing standards to a new minimum for space and heating. The standards became mandatory Jan 1969. |
| 1968 | Act | Town and Country Planning Act | UK Government | Protection of listed buildings. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 1: Some aspects of designing for old people (1968 metric edition) | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The report provided measurements for the interior design or accommodation for old people. Investigations were prepared by the Ministry's Housing Research and Development Group. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 2: Grouped flats for old people: a sociological study (1968 metric edition) | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | A survey undertaken to provide background sociological material for a Flatlets Project at Stevenage (Design Bulletin 11). The views and experiences of the tenants, wardens, and housing managers of six local authority flatlet schemes were obtained in a survey by Dr. D. F. Roberts, one of the Ministry's sociologists. A pilot anthropometric study of a small sample of elderly women living in flatlets in order to arrive at a range of body dimensions which might serve as a basis for detailed design. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Space in the Home: Metric edition Design Bulletin 6 | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The bulletin was designed to follow-up the publication of 'Homes for Today and Tomorrow'. It illustrated the main activities in a home and suggested furniture and space requirements. It provided typical dimensions for the typical items of furniture for which the dwelling designer should allow space, and provided anthropometric data about the space needed to use and move about furniture. The bulletin also laid out sample room plans for a terraced house. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 14: House Planning: A guide to user needs | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | For the use in the preparation of house plans, and also of value to all concerned in the preparation of the design brief i.e. private developers, housing managers, and housing committees. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 16: Coordination of components in housing: metric dimensional framework | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | One of a series on dimensions and components for housing. Written in metric terms, it discusses the objectives of dimensional coordination and describes the metric dimensional framework with the help of diagrams and tables. The application of the framework to a range of plan types is demonstrated. |
| 1968 | Circular | Circular 1/68, Metrication of Housebuilding | Department of the Environment | Local authorities expected to report the number of dwellings programmed for the next year and asked to specify standard housing components to the new metric standards. |
| 1968 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 7: Housing cost yardstick: for schemes at medium and high densities | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | |
| 1969 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Funds would be channelled towards the improvement of existing housing. It recommended a new policy, the General Improvement Areas (GIAs), for which subsidies would be available |
| 1969 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 15: Family houses at West Ham: an account of the project with an appraisal | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | Illustrated account of the development and appraisal of a housing project. Part 1 deals with the design and construction, density requirements, development of the site layout, and costing procedures. Part 2 gives an account of the appraisal of the project after a year or so in use. It describes tenants' reactions to the higher standards and amenities provided. Bulletin is the second of a series dealing with development projects designed by the Ministry's Research and Development Group (architects, sociologists, quantity surveyors, and administrators). The objective of project bulletins is to help local authorities or private developers embarking on similar schemes, by describing the problems they are likely to meet, how the Development Group met these problems, and the lessons that have since been learnt. |
| 1970 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 17: The family at home: a study of households in Sheffield | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The first of two bulletins dealing with a development project at Sheffield designed by the Ministry's Research and Development Group. It reports on the preliminary social study, summarises the data collected and sets out the implications of the design brief. |
| 1970 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 18: Designing a low-rise housing system: how the 5M system was evolved, the pilot project at Sheffield | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The second of two bulletins dealing with the development project at Sheffield. Sets out the purpose of the project, the evolution of the design, the development of the 5M industrialised building system, and the cost planning techniques adopted. |
| 1970 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 19: Living in a slum: a study of St. Mary's, Oldham | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The first bulletin in a series dealing with a development project at Oldham designed by the Ministry's Research and Development Group. Preliminary study in the investigation of the social problems involved in the redevelopment of a slum area |
| 1970 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 20: Moving out of a slum: a study of people moving from St. Mary's, Oldham | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The second bulletin in the series dealing with the project at Oldham. Explores the experiences and attitudes of households displaced during the redevelopment of a slum area. |
| 1970 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 21: Families living at high density: a study of estates in Leeds, Liverpool and London | Ministry of Housing and Local Government | The third bulletin in a series of fourth dealing with the project at Oldham. Gives an account of the attitudes of families with children under 16 living on three estates at densities of 109, 130, and 140 persons per acre. |
| 1971 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 13: Safety in the home (metric edition) | Department of the Environment | Safety requirements for both house planning and detailed design. The material is separately grouped under activities and elements and a checklist is provided. It does not provide escape from fire. Reprinted 1976 to meet requirements of new legislation and recent research findings. |
| 1971 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 22: New housing in a cleared area: a study of St. Mary's Oldham | Department of the Environment | The final bulletin in the series of the project at Oldham. Gives an account of tenants' views of their new homes and estate, and includes information on design considerations to help assess the views expressed. |
| 1971 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 12: Cars in Housing 2: Dimensions and Multi-storey parking | Department of the Environment | Detailed design data for the parking and garaging of cars in residential areas. The first section gives data for cars, garages, forecourts and parking bays. The second section is for multi-storey garages for housing estates. (See also Bulletin 10) |
| 1971 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 23: Housing single people 1: How they live at present | Department of the Environment | The first bulletin in the series dealing with a housing project for single people under retirement age at Leicester by the Department's Housing Development Directorate. The study is devoted to an account of the social survey work undertaken to find out the groups concerned, their housing needs and demands. (see also DB 29( |
| 1972 | Act | The Building Regulations | UK Government | |
| 1972 | Act | Local Government Act | UK Government | |
| 1972 | Act | Housing Finance Act | UK Government | Reduced council housing subsidy and replaced controlled rents with 'fair' rents - in effect a rent increase |
| 1972 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 24: Spaces in the Home: Part 1 Bathrooms and WCs | Department of the Environment | Guidance on planning a layout by describing a means of co-ordinating the activity areas and discussing the basic elements concerned in the internal environment. Cost indices for representative three-appliance bathroom types support the recommendations given. |
| 1972 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 24: Spaces in the Home: Part 2 Kitchens and Laundering Spaces | Department of the Environment | A three-part document for the designers. Gives guidance on user requirements, design principles, layout, fittings and appliances. Discusses laundering separately so that it can be considered independently of the kitchen. Reviews recent sociological data including illustrated case studies. |
| 1972 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 25: The estate outside the dwelling: reactions of residents to aspects of housing layout | Department of the Environment | The first in a series of bulletins dealing with specific areas and problems encountered in the design of housing layouts. It reports the results of a comparative survey indicating how different types of households reacted to the various types of building form and other aspects of their estate. |
| 1972 | Notes | Housing on a dimensional framework | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1973 | Paper | High density housing: a current DOE development project | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1973 | Paper | Local authority housing: a comparative study of the land use and built form of 110 schemes | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1973 | Body | National House Building Council | NHBC | The NHBRC was renamed National House Building Council. It is a non-profit distributing company, is the UK's largest provider of new home warranties (around 80% of new homes built in the UK each year have an NHBC 10-year warranty). NHBC is also the UK's largest single Approved Inspector for Building Regulations. Its other activities include the provision of services linked to house building and general construction; including energy ratings, health and safety, sustainability, and training. It also provides industry statistics and benchmarking services. |
| 1973 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 27: Children at Play | Department of the Environment | Discusses activities of young children near home. Discusses the need for supervised play facilities. |
| 1973 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 28: Multi-purpose halls | Department of the Environment | Local authority community building. |
| 1973 | Notes | Landscape of new housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1973 | Notes | Construction | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1973 | Notes | Thermal insulation in housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1973 | Notes | Residential Accommodation for Elderly People | Department of Health and Social Security and Welsh Office | Local Authority Building Note No. 2 |
| 1973 | Paper | Vandalism: a constructive approach | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1974 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Extended functions of Housing Corporation, provided for the registration and giving of assistance to housing associations, introduced new powers for declaration of Housing Action Areas and made provisions for higher renovations grants. |
| 1974 | Act | Local Government Act | UK Government | Grants for Housing Associations enabling large-scale development. |
| 1974 | Act | Health & Safety etc. | UK Government | Introduction of national building regulations to replace local byelaws |
| 1974 | Paper | The quality of local authority housing schemes | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1974 | Paper | Mobility housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1974 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 29: Housing single people 2: a design guide with a description of a scheme at Leicester | Department of the Environment | The second bulletin dealing with the scheme at Leicester for single people under the retirement age. Gives guidance to designers and others concerned with providing accommodations for working single people. |
| 1974 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 30: Services for Housing: sanitary plumbing and drainage | Department of the Environment | Concerned mainly with installations in low and medium-rise developments. Takes into account user requirements studies in kitchen and bathroom layouts and recent research into pipework systems. |
| 1975 | Act | Housing Rents and Subsidies Act | UK Government | The act reversed the policy of 'fair' rents and empowered local authorities to set rent levels. |
| 1975 | Circular | Starter and extendible homes | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Document illustrates 8 examples taken from the DOE Monitoring Programme. The term "starter home" covers an unextendible house of 1-3 person occupancy (30-65 sqm) and "extendible home" covers a house of flat of similar area of immediately usable space, with facility for internal or external expansion. |
| 1975 | Circular | Housing needs and action: the need for smaller homes | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | The HDD was asked to investigate alternative means of providing low cost housing, acting as advisors on public sector housing, but for the first time to liaise with housebuilders. One of the findings was the lack of housing for sale to small households. Although one and two person households represented 50% of all households, no more than 10% of the total housing stock was in one and two person units. It includes interviews with 7 developers and 8 local authorities, and in phase 2, consumer attitudes. |
| 1975 | Paper | The social effects of living off the ground | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1975 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 31: Housing for the Elderly: the size of grouped schemes | Department of the Environment | A social study of some of the problems involved in the design, the provision of various facilities and the administration of various sizes, of grouped schemes for the elderly. The study's aim was to shed light on the working of larger schemes and find out the reactions of residents to their environment. |
| 1975 | Paper | Wheelchair housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1976 | Manual | Housing Subsidies Manual | Ministry of Housing and Local Government Welsh Office | |
| 1976 | Notes | House shells | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1976 | Publication | Design guidance survey: report on a survey of local authority design guidance for private residential development | Department of the Environment | Set of design principles or standards for private residential development due to the absence of policies from local authorities. Based on survey/study of the practice of design control on residential development by local authorities carried out by DOE and Housing Research Foundation. Aims are to provide information in what ways the design characteristics of private sector housing are controlled by local authorities. They found only a small minority of the responding local authorities have published standards or policies other than roads or parking. Housebuilders are generally aware of the publication of design standards or policies by local authorities. |
| 1976 | Circular | Residential density in development briefs, Development Note 2 | Department of the Environment | |
| 1976 | Paper | Housing the elderly: how successful are Granny Annexes? | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1976 | Paper | Children's playground | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1976 | Paper | A survey of standards of design and specification in new local authority housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1977 | Report | Preferred Dwelling Plans | Department of Architecture and Civic Design (GLC) | Sought to reduce wasteful duplication of design work by combining constructional standardization with flexibility of layout. All plans were based upon the statutory requirements of the Parker Morris Standards, set out in the Ministry of Housing's 1963 ‘Design Bulletin 6 – Space in the Home’. This report provided dimensions for typical items of furniture for which an architect should allow space and provided anthropometric data about the space needed to use and move about furniture. It reduced their 120 previous plans to 38 types. Housing was limited to 3 floors with a density of 250 ppha. The variations were on the frontage width. The intention of providing these layouts was not to eliminate the architect's role but to cut down on preliminary stages of documentation and "spend more time on the architectural treatment of the exterior of the dwelling". |
| 1977 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 32: Residential roads and footpaths: Layout considerations | Department of the Environment/ Department of Transport | Local guidance for the layouts of residential roads in new housing schemes. The basic themes considered are: relating the housing scheme to its setting, minimising damage and nuisance for non-access vehicular traffic, reducing vehicle flow and speed, providing for pedestrian movement, making effective provision for off-street parking, providing for vehicular movement, and making provision for statutory and other services. |
| 1977 | Notes | Parking in new housing schemes | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | Housing Development Notes |
| 1977 | Paper | Local authorities and building for sale | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1977 | Paper | Tenant participation in council housing management | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1978 | Publication | An Introduction to Housing Layout | Department of Architecture and Civic Design (GLC) | |
| 1978 | Publication | Housing the elderly | Department of the Environment | Combines publications from the Department of the Environment concerned with housing the elderly. |
| 1978 | Design Bulletin | Design Bulletin 33: Housing single people 3: an appraisal of a purpose-built scheme | Department of the Environment | Final bulletin of three dealing with a research project for housing single people under retirement age, fiving the results of an appraisal of a purpose-built scheme at Leicester. Discusses social, design and management aspects of this type of accommodation in the light of findings from a survey of the scheme's residents. |
| 1978 | Paper | Rent arrears in local authority housing | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1978 | Paper | Box prefabricated structures in housing: a study of mobile homes and related improved products | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1978 | Paper | Housing services for disabled people | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1978 | Paper | Handicapped children: their homes and lifestyles | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1978 | Publication | Exploratory project on heating for the elderly | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD non-series publications |
| 1978 | Standard | BS 5619: Code of practice for design of housing for the convenience of disabled people | British Standards Institution (BSI) | Housing design guidelines for different disabilities. Although it was more generous than the ‘mobility’ standard, its adoptiondid little to increase the supply of accessible dwellings. |
| 1979 | Standard | BS 5610: Code of practice for access for the disabled to buildings | British Standards Institution (BSI) | The 1946 New Towns Act established an ambitious programme for building new towns. It gave the government power to designate areas of land for new town development. Many were intended to accommodate the overpopulation from London & Greater London Authority. But others were built to provide better quality housing for existing employment areas and other were located in mining areas. |
| 1980 | Act | Planning and Land Act | UK Government | It is responsible for the establishment of development corporations, including the London Docklands Development Corporation. It also created the Public Request to Order Disposal, which can be used by the government to force a local authority to sell derelict land and empty property owned by certain public landlords. |
| 1980 | Act | Housing Act ('Right to Buy') | UK Government | Under this act, the government gave council tenants with a three year history of tenancy a right to buy their homes at generous discounts. These ranged from a third to a half the value of the property. Between 1979 and 1987, more than a sixth of the total stock of council houses were sold. |
| 1980 | Report | Starter homes: a report of a DOE survey of new small houses and flats for sale | Housing Development Directorate, Social Research Division | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1981 | Paper | A survey of tenants' attitudes to recently completed estates | Housing Development Directorate, Social Research Division | HDD Occasional Papers |
| 1982 | Act | Social Security and Housing Benefits Act | UK Government | Established housing benefit system |
| 1982 | Publication | Activities and Spaces, Dimensional Data for Housing Design | John Noble and DOE | Featured typical furniture and activity zones in a range of sizes to suit different needs and demands, including recommendations for elders. |
| 1983 | Report | Housing for mentally ill and mentally handicapped people : a research study of housing provision in England and Wales | Department of the Environment | |
| 1983 | Standard | Design and Contract Criteria | Housing Corporation (HC) | These design standards replaced the Parker Morris standards which had been abolished by the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, brought in by Margaret Thatcher three years earlier. The aim was to reduce public expenditure. |
| 1984 | Act | Building Act | UK Government | This act obliges local authorities to enforce the building regulations in their areas. |
| 1984 | Act | Housing Defects Act | UK Government | Obligations placed on local authorities in respect of sold defective dwellings. |
| 1984 | Standard | BS 1192 Construction Drawing Practice | British Standards Institution (BSI) | Part 1, Recommendations for general principlesPart 2, Recommendations for architectural and engineering drawingsPart 3, Recommendations for symbols and other graphic conventions |
| 1985 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | The act (as well as the 1988 act) facilitated the transfer of council housing to not-for-profit housing associations. Right to repairs. Section 325 of the Housing Act 1985 provides that there is overcrowding wherever there are so many people in a house that any two or more of those persons, being ten or more years old, and of opposite sexes, not being persons living together as husband and wife, have to sleep in the same room. |
| 1986 | Act | Building Societies Act | UK Government | Enabled building societies to own and invest in housing directly and to compete with other financial institutions. |
| 1986 | Act | Housing and Planning Act | UK Government | Facilitated block sales of estates and increased 'Right to Buy' discounts. |
| 1988 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | The act removed rent control in the private sector, thus promoting the private sector in the provision of 'affordable' housing and move to mix funding for housing associations. Central government could designate an area of public housing and create a Housing Action Trust (HAT) to manage the houses. The act redefined housing associations as non-public bodies, permitting access to private finance, which was a strong motivation for transfer as public sector borrowing had been severely constrained. |
| 1988 | Standard | BS 5588: Part 8 Fire precautions in the design, construction and use of buildings: Code of practice for means of escape for disabled people | British Standards Institution (BSI) | Provides detailed guidance on measures that enable disabled people to be assisted to safety in the event of a fire. Aimed at designers and those involved with building construction. It applies to all buildings (new or existing) except single-family dwelling houses, flats and maisonettes and buildings used as a house in multiple occupation. |
| 1989 | Act | Local Government and Housing Act | UK Government | Local councils lost their right to subsidize council rents out of local revenue. New local authority rent and subsidy systems. |
| 1990 | Act | Town and Country Planning Act | UK Government | Sets out the statutory definition of 'development' for planning permission. |
| 1991 | Standard | BS 4467: Guide to the dimensions in designing for elderly people | British Standards Institution (BSI) | Anthropometric data for the design of elderly people homes. |
| 1991 | Standard | Lifetime Home Standards | Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Habinteg Housing Association for Greater London Authority | The Lifetime Home Standard is a series of sixteen design criteria intended to make homes more easily adaptable for lifetime use at minimal cost. As of 2008, the administration and technical support on Lifetime Homes is provided by Habinteg, who took on this responsibility from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. |
| 1992 | Circular | Circular 12/92, Houses in Multiple Occupation | Department of the Environment | The aim of this circular is to help local housing authorities to develop a proactive strategy to raise standards in the HMOs in their area, and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which authorities manage their HMO stock. |
| 1993 | Act | Housing and Urban Development Act | UK Government | Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) in London housing. Rent to mortgage scheme. |
| 1993 | Publication | BRE Housing Design Handbook | Building Research Establishment (BRE) | It provides a reference manual of basic information on housing, whether new or refurbished. It is intended to help clients, contractors, developers and all involved in housebuilding, in both the private and public sector. As a reference book it provides a means of checking that housing design criteria have been met adequately. |
| 1993 | Standard | Scheme Development Standards (SDS) | Housing Corporation (HC) | Aimed to produce appropriate good quality housing, adequate space for furniture arrangements, noise transmission, circulation space and the relationship between rooms. Later replaced by Design and Quality Standards. |
| 1993 | Standard | Total Cost Indicators (TCIs) | Housing Corporation (HC) | TCIs formed the basis of the HC funding system. They aimed to achieve value for money in return for grant, and ensure that the correct level of grant was paid. TCIs were divided into ‘unit type’ and ‘cost group area categories’. Its total floor area, and the cost group it fell into, determined the baseline TCI for a ‘self‒contained unit’. The tables provided a probable occupancy figure, but the ‘actual’ number of occupants was derived from the number of bed spaces provided. |
| 1994 | PPG 15: Planning and the Historic Environment | Department of the Environment | Planning policy guidance for the identification and protection of historic buildings, conservation areas, and other elements of the historic environment. | |
| 1995 | Act | Disability Discrimination Act | UK Government | Introduced proposals to make limited wheelchair access mandatory for all new build housing. |
| 1996 | Act | Housing Act | UK Government | Amendments to housing benefit, tenants' rights and homelessness. New regulatory framework for 'Registered Social Landlords' |
| 1996 | Act | Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act | UK Government | Amendments to improvement and repair grant systems. Abolition of mandatory grants. |
| 1996 | Act | Party Wall etc Act | UK Government | Regulations for building, altering or settling disputes regarding party walls. |
| 1997 | Report | Towards an Urban Renaissance | Urban Task Force | A report written by the Urban Task Force chaired by Richard Rogers. It examined how 4 million projected new homes over 25 years, might be accommodated in the UK. |
| 1997 | Standard | Housing Quality Indicators (HQI) | Department of the Environment | Sought to quantify current standards, and provide a means of tracking upward or downward trends in these. Replaces Total Cost Indicators (TCI) |
| 1998 | Report | Guide to Standards and Quality | Joseph Rowntree Foundation | This report does not set a minimum dimensions but determine the size of the rooms by requiring the accommodation of certain functions and furniture. |
| 1998 | Standard | Standards and Quality in Development: A good practice | National Housing Federation (NHF)/ Andrew Drury (HATC) | It highlighted the drop in standards (for example, noting that a bedrooms should be large enough to accomodate a bed). It differentiated between ‘essential’ and ‘desirable’ criteria. Although it was only discretionary good practice guidance (not a funding requirement), it was widely used by housing associations. |
| 1999 | Body | Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) | An executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Communities and Local Government. In 2011, it merged with the Design Council. | |
| 2000 | Guidance | Planning Policy Guidance 3: Housing (PPG3) | PPG3 advised towards higher density development using brownfield or urban sites wherever possible. PPG3 was replaced with Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) in 2006. | |
| 2001 | Design tool | Building for Life | Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) | It is a 'design tool' designed to help structure discussions about proposed new residential development between home builders, Urban Development Corporations, local authorities, communities and other stakeholders. |
| 2001 | Standard | BS 8300: Code of practice for the design of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people | British Standards Institution (BSI) | No longer current but cited in Part M Building Regulations. |
| 2004 | Act | Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act | UK Government | Aimed to make the planning application process quicker and more efficient and increasing the predictability of planning decisions. Speeding up of the handling of major infrastructure projects. Reforming and speeding up of the plans system. Replacing local plans, unitary development plans and structure plans with local development documents. |
| 2004 | Plan | London Plan | Greater London Authority | Established the Borough housing targets. It encouraged boroughs to plan frameworks for large residential sites of 10 hectares or more, or that will accommodate more than 500 dwellings. 10% of new homes were expected to go further and be suitable, or potentially suitable, for wheelchair users. Classifies housing into three categories: social, intermediate, and market housing. |
| 2005 | Report | What Home Buyers Want | Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) | ‘What Home Buyers Want’ is based on research conducted by MORI and draws on a range of opinion surveys. It sets out what we know about what homebuyers want both in terms of location and house design. |
| 2006 | Report | Housing Space Standards | Greater London Authority and HATC Ltd | It traced the changes in space standards and acknowledges that there is a relationship between unit sizes and affordability. It reported its concern of the poor match between London's demographics and the accommodation being provided. The first space standards to be introduced in more than two decades. It made recommendations for a set of baseline standards which included: minimum floor areas for cooking, eating, and living areas, minimum floor areas for bedrooms, and minimum floor area requirements for internal storage. |
| 2006 | Standard | Code for Sustainable Homes | Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | Drafted by the BREEAM Centre at the Building Research Establishment (BRE). The Code awarded new homes a rating from Level 1 (entry level above building regulations) to Level 6 (the highest in terms of sustainability), based on their performance against nine sustainability criteria which are combined to assess the overall environmental impact. It was introduced as voluntary standard in 2007 and eventually withdrawn in 2015. |
| 2006 | Planning Policy Statement 2 (PPS3) | |||
| 2007 | Report | Places, Homes, People | English Partnerships (EP) | These Quality Standards replaced the Scheme Development Standards (SDS). These space standards were unusual because they covered only five dwelling types and took no account of storey height (i.e. did not differentiate between flats and houses). It was questioned because the ‘usable’ floor space in a house with the same floor area as a flat with an equivalent number of bedrooms and bedspaces, would be considerably less because of the space taken up by stairs. |
| 2007 | Standard | Design and Quality Standards | Housing Corporation (HC) | An updated version of the Housing Quality Indicators (HQI) linked to the Building for Life standards. These two would become the condition for securing grant support for social housing schemes. They comprised three performance standards: Internal Environment (unit size, layout, services), Sustainability (Level 3 of the Code of Sustainable homes), and Building for Life (score 12 out of 16). However, higher score was not directly linked to higher funding. |
| 2008 | Standard | Standards and Quality in Development: A Good Practice Guide. 2nd Edition | National Housing Federation (NHF) | This guide served as a benchmark, especially for housing associations, to what good practice should be in affordable housing. The document had no official status although expected to inform the HCA's funding standards. They introduced the indicative minimum dwelling areas (IMDAs). |
| 2008 | Body | Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) | Formed from a merge between English Partnerships (EP) and Housing Corporation (HC). | |
| 2009 | Report | Resident Satisfaction with Space in New Homes | CABE, HATC Ltd, and Ipsos Mori | A survey of 11,000 home owners in London was conducted to measure how satisfied people were with different aspects of their home. The results showed that half the users said the amount of space limited their furniture layout. CABE followed up with a summary report called 'Space in new homes: what residents think.' |
| 2010 | Design Guide | London Housing Design Guide (Interim Edition) | Greater London Authority | The design guide's objectives was limited to affordable housing and housing built on Greater London Authority-owned land, although the guide proposed to open debate for applying the standards consistently for all new housing whether public or not. It is an interim version because the Mayor decided to apply the guide to all tenures, meaning it would be subject to public consultation. The standards adopted two priorities. Priority one was mandatory and required a minimum gross internal floor area for 16 typical dwelling plans, storage and open space. The second priority, was preferred unless funded from the London Development Agency (LDA), and determined the min floor areas and widths for habitable rooms. |
| 2010 | Report | Room to Swing a Cat | HATC Ltd | A report commissioned by the Greater London Authority to serve as guidance for the space standards in the 2011 London Plan. The report found that, on average, all dwelling types examined were smaller than the proposed new standards and that 60% of one bedroom flats had no storage space. One bedroom flats averaged to be 46.9m2 compared to the min standards proposed by the HCA (48m2) and the London Plan draft (50m2). |
| 2010 | Standard | Proposed core housing design and sustainability standards | Homes and Communities Agency (HCA)/ Levitt Bernstein | A consultation, which offered a new slimmed-down set of standards. The draft retained the requirements to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes and retained the Building for Life scoring. Levitt Bernstein proposed these space standards through a simple 'space calculator' and a set of proposed dwelling plans. These standards proved to be complicated and costly and were abolished in 2014. |
| 2010 | Standard | Lifetime Home Standards (revised version) | Habinteg Housing Association and Greater London Authority | A series of sixteen design criteria intended to make homes more easily adaptable for lifetime use at minimal cost. The concept was initially developed in 1991 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Habinteg Housing Association. Introduced to achieve a higher level of practicability for volume developers in meeting the requirements of the Code for Sustainable Homes. |
| 2011 | Plan | London Plan 2011 | Greater London Authority | By 2011, HCA London became a separate arm of HCA and incorporated a new set of LHDG that would become a condition of funding in the capital. HCA London would be absorbed into the Greater London Authority, chaired by the Mayor. The key standards for the London Housing Design Guide (LHDG) had been incorporated in the new London Plan and extended to all tenures. |
| 2012 | Act | Welfare Reform Act | UK Government | This act introduced the Bedroom tax or under-occupancy penalty, which reduced the amount of benefit paid to claimants if they are deemed to have too much living space in the property they are renting |
| 2012 | Guidance | London Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) | Greater London Authority | London plan 2011 implementation framework from the LHDG and using the status 'Baseline' and 'Good Practice'. It covered 77 flat and house types and Levitt Bernstein's space calculator was used to generate the extra figures. It effectively combined the three sets of space standards (NHF, HCA, Greater London Authority) into a single set. |
| 2013 | Standard | Housing Standards Review (HSR) | Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | A review of the building regulations framework and housing standards, intended to consolidate and simplify codes, standards, rules, regulations and guidance in order to reduce unnecessary costs and complexities in the house building process. |
| 2015 | Standard | Nationally Described Space Standard (NDSS) | Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | These space standards are one of the principal outcomes of the government’s 2012‒15 Housing Standards Review (HSR). It set out a detailed guidance on the minimum size of new homes. The NDSS is not a mandatory building regulation but a technical planning standard whose adoption has to be justified by each council in its local plans. |
| 2016 | Act | Housing and Planning Bill | UK Government | An Act of Parliament that makes changes to housing policy and the planning system. It introduces legislation to allow the sale of higher value local authority homes, introduce starter homes and "Pay to Stay" and other measures intended to promote home ownership and boost levels of housebuilding. |
| 2016 | Guide | Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) | Greater London Authority | Provide guidance about how to implement the housing policies in the London Plan. It is divided into seven parts. |
| 2016 | Plan | London Plan | Greater London Authority | |
| 2017 | Report | Fixing our brokenhousing market | Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | The White Paper recognises the problems of affordability and finance in housing development and put forward the need to promote smaller sites and smaller developers. |
| 2018 | Guide | Building for Life 12 | Building for Life Partnership (Design Council CABE, Design for Homes, and Home Builders Federation) | Any new development that secures at least nine ‘green’ indicators against the twelve questions are eligible to apply for a Built for Life quality mark. Local authorities are encouraged to refer to BfL12 in their Local Plans. Only compulsory when developments seek the Built for Life accreditation. |
| 2019 | Design Guide | National Design Guide | Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | This National Design Guide, and the National Model Design Code and Guidance Notes for Design Codes illustrate how well-designed places that are beautiful, healthy, greener, enduring and successful can be achieved in practice. It forms part of the Government’s collection of planning practice guidance and should be read alongside the separate planning practice guidance on design process and tools. |
| 2019 | Report | Secured by Design (SBD) | Official Police Security Initiative | Offers security guidance for domestic properties. The report provides safety recommendations to reduce crime and costs in developments. |
| 2020 | Report | Living with beauty; promoting health, well-being and sustainable growth | Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission | The report calls for a new planning frameworks that supports developments to meet local design standards. The report targets eight ‘priority areas’ where policy proposals are needed. |
| 2021 | Design Guide | National Model Design Code | Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | Provides detailed guidance on the production of design codes, guides and policies to promote successful design. It expands on the ten characteristics of good design set out in the 2019 National Design Guide. |
| 2021 | Paper | The Charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper | Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | The white paper presents a charter setting out seven commitments that social housing residents should be able to expect from their landlord. |
| 2021 | Plan | The London Plan | Greater London Authority | The London Plan is the Mayor of London's Spatial Development Strategy (SDS). It continues to use the Minimum internal space standards for new dwellings set out by the Nationally Described Space Standards. |
| 2021 | Planning Policy | National Planning Policy Framework | Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government | The National Planning Policy Framework sets out the Government’s planning policies for Greater London Authority and how these should be applied. It provides a framework within which locally-prepared plans for housing and other development can be produced. |
| 2022 | Act | Building Safety Act | UK Government | A Bill to make provision about the safety of people in or about buildings and the standard of buildings, to amend the Architects Act 1997, and to amend provision about complaints made to a housing ombudsman. |
| 2022 | Act | Healthy Homes Bill | UK Government | |
| 2022 | Parliamentary Bill | Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill | Department for Levelling Up,Housing & Communities | Aims to drive local growth and empower local leaders to regenerate their areas. Gives powers to council to bring vacant properties back into use. Changes to neighbourhood planning and digitising the system in an attempt to make local plans more accessible. |
| 2010/16 | Act | Approved Documents | Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government | General guidance on the performance expected of materials and building work in order to comply with the building regulations. They provide examples and solutions on how to achieve compliance for some of the more common building situations. |
| Circular | Monitoring provisions for smaller households | |||
| Publication | Housing groups and consortia | Department of the Environment: Housing Development Directorate | HDD non-series publications |
DATASET: Housing Standards, Manuals and Acts in England
Lucia Alonso