The Northern Ireland housing trust

Abstract

The area of Northern Ireland is 5,238 square miles and, of the population of 1,370,000, one-third live in Belfast. Londonderry is the next largest centre with 50,000 inhabitants, and there is then a drop to between ten and twenty thousand in the next ten towns. While Rural District Councils in Ireland were encouraged by Government grants to build cottages for farm labourers from 1883, there was little public housing in urban areas prior to 1919. Up to this date the position was not unlike that in England. In the period 1919-1939, however, when 4,000,000 houses were being built in England and Wales by private enterprise and local authorities, many fewer houses, proportionately, were built in Northern Ireland. Further, the grants available in Great Britain since 1933 for slum clearance were not available in Northern Ireland; consequently, while 250,000 slum houses were cleared in Great Britain before the war the problem remains practically untouched in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Housing Trust was set up as a public authority on 14th February, 1945, under the Housing Act (Northern Ireland), 1945. It consists of five members, appointed by the Minister of Health and Local Government, who serve without salary or fee. The initial term was five years and the same members were reappointed in 1950 for a similar period. The local authorities remain the Statutory bodies responsible for housing in their areas and the Trust was formed to supplement their building, and was, broadly, to be responsible for providing 25,000 houses, leaving the remaining 75,000 to be provided by local authorities and private enterprise.