User:Colin 68dots/PrefabSocial
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British post-war temporary prefab houses were the major part of the delivery plan envisaged by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage.
Taking the details of the public housing plan from the output of the Burt Committee formed in 1942, the Conservative Party's Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,0000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years within five years of the end of World War II. The eventual bill of state law, agreed under the post-war Labour Party government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee, agreed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150m.
Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start, but foundered through a combination of commercial rivalry, public concern, and pure cost. More expensive to build than conventional houses, the envisaged excess production capacity of materials was taken up at a quicker rate through Britain's post-war export drive to reduce her burgeoning war-debts.
In the end, of 1.2 million new houses built from 1945 to 1951 when the programme officially ended, only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed.[1][2] Today, a number survive, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years. Social implications were not considered before embarking on this post-war housing, but both the prefab "estates" and their later demise had a profound social affect on family networks and their communities.