The housing stock of G.B. 1800-2050

Wyatt, DP 1980, The housing stock of G.B. 1800-2050 , PhD thesis, Salford : University of Salford.

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Abstract

Not only is housing a major activity, in which the building industry plays a significant role in the life cycle of the housing stock, but today, society is becoming aware of its dependency on scarce resources particularly "energy constraints", rising construction costs and a growing dissatisfaction with housing standards. It was against this background that this study was carried out. This work :- (i) traces the growth of G.B.'s housing stock from 1800 to the present time and discusses briefly those historical and current influences which have shaped its condition, state and housing standards, (ii) ." . included an extensive field impression survey to identify how dwellings aged or decayed and failed and how long did a differing construction form survive. (iii) discusses the fiscal life in the public sector Which, may be taken as sixty years and questions how long a dwelling lasts. What constitutes unfitness, and housing standards are also briefly reviewed. (iv) examines, what causes a dwelling to fail; modes of failure, significance of failure patterns whether attributed to twilight areas, physical ageing, economic, functional or social obsolescence or technical failures or due to other shortcomings, e.g, in legislation, design, manufacture, tenure, construction form or maintainance standards. (v) considers the difficulties of differing decay rates, mismatch of component/material life to a dwelling life and their significance on survivorship are explored. Likewise the problem of an ageing housing stock and early failure of newer forms of construction are con- sidered with Government policy favouring rehabilitation in preference to clearance. (vi) highlights the significance of the dwelling stock state for the future and considers the mean stock age, replacement and clearance years with the implication of changing legislative and preference standards with a stock which cannot be replaced in one's life time. (vii) involved developing a methodology of both appraising the housing stock's physical status and setting up likely future levels of build and clearance to highlight the problem of mismatched clearance to replacement year ratios and the need to consider how will society reconstruct or replace its. present net stock which cannot be achieved in one life time, (viii) suggests responding to the inheritance of the housing stock yesterday today may not be sufficient in turn for our successors. (ix) continues and suggests housing is essentially a dynamic "stock" system which may be modelled and a suite of programs were developed to indicate a theoretical state using given construction forms with decay rates based on field studies undertaken in different parts of Great Britain and prescribed rehabilitation strategies to extend the life of "survivorship", and is discussed in some detail. (x) discusses the implications of survivorship and differing rates of decay and suggests housing standards should be reappraised for unfitness, unsatisfactory housing and in the life span of the housing stock which a designer's construction form enters. (xi) stresses that the decay characteristics of each basic construction form that forms the housing stock's population determines the likely mode of clearance needs in the future and all each housing district/occupier can do is to slow down or stop the inherent decay characteristics, much of which is determined by the designer and through lack of reinvestment. (xii) suggests unless major changes take place in the management of housing stock Condierable problems are likely to arise, for example the concern expressed with the inner city areas will, by the turn of the century, be echoed for suburbia. Furthermore it is suggested the housing stock's failure rate is not being matched by clearance and upgrading strategies and as a result there is a danger of instability arising. This latter view has in part a parallel with the work of Rene Thorn on catastrophy theory and this study lends some support to the view; that the housing stock could be modelled to examine its instability. (xiii) states that unless construction forms' life span performance increases more resources will be required to upgrade, or alternatively unless the relationships or build and clear are not quickly re-examined there will MM; mother housing condition problem. (xiv) concludes by suggesting that far more research is needed in "the field" and in manufacture to determine the life of given components in given situations, and that a prescribed life and review of fitness should be undertaken, that in spite of the considerable number of bodies involved in both public and private housing sectors present housing management needs to be urgently reviewed and that the C.I. needs to review its own effectiveness and level of technology used. (xv) - questions the whole basis of discounting and cost constraints which make little sense without producing designs capable of meeting a required predetermined life and prescribing the period and standard acceptance for given stages of a dwelling's life and housing stock management strategy. (xvi) stresses that housing may be considered as a stock management exercise which can be structured and examined through a multi deck housing stack. Failure to do so will mean future reconstruction programmes are likely to have to be on the scale of the 1950 f s and the same basic errors made then will be repeated. (xvii) considers that it is important that planners, politicians, economists, manufacturers and the building industry should understand the dynamic characteristics and the housing model and should urgently review the clearance cycle. Finally the study makes a number of recommendations in the field of performance and research.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Contributors:	Burgess, RA (Supervisor)
Schools:	Schools > School of the Built Environment Schools > School of Computing, Science and Engineering > Salford Innovation Research Centre
Depositing User:	Institutional Repository
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2012 13:34
Last Modified:	04 Aug 2022 11:23
URI:	https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/26971

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