A timeline of housing history – the 1980s

Insight25.03.247.15 AM by Jess Mccabe

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Inside Housing. Over the next few days, we will look back on four decades of housing history, as reported by the publication. Jess McCabe starts by going back to the 1980s. Pictures by Alamy

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This month marks the 40th anniversary of @insidehousing. Over the next few days, we will look back on four decades of housing history, as reported by the publication. @jester starts by going back to the 1980s #UKhousing

Inside Housing launched mid-way through a turbulent decade for housing, and for the UK. That was reflected in our early coverage, from debates over the Right to Buy, to massive cuts in grant for building new homes, which still shape the UK to this day.

We have included a flavour of the important stories as they unfolded, and as Inside Housing’s reporters saw them, in our two timelines below. Many of the stories that splashed on our front pages back then still echo down the decades with their enduring relevance.

The biggest stories from the ’80s

Margaret Thatcher, third right, gives a copy of the deeds of 39 Amersham Road in Essex to James Patterson (at front door), the GLC’s 12,000th council house buyer. GLC leader Sir Horace Cutler (second left, with a beard) looks on

Right to Buy

By the time Inside Housing launched, the Right to Buy (above) was an established policy – but fierce debates over whether it should be repealed or expanded occupied the pages of the magazine from the beginning. In November 1988, chancellor Nigel Lawson made the Inside Housing front page after he said the “bonanza” of cash raised from the sale of homes would not be reinvested in housing. By the end of the decade, 1.2 million social homes had been sold).

Stock transfers

A running story for the 1980s was the transfer of council housing to housing associations, as repair bills racked up. Often these stock transfers were controversial, as Eileen Tant, a tenant of Dover’s St Radigunds Estate, expressed in 1988. “We are really worried our rents are going to go up and we will not have secure homes if a housing association takes over,” she told Inside Housing.

40 years of Inside Housing – the other decades

A timeline of housing history – the 1990s
As Inside Housing turns 40 years old, we are looking back over four decades of housing history, as reported by the publication. James Riding takes a walk down memory lane to the ’90s

A timeline of housing history – the 2000s
As Inside Housing reflects on our reporting of yesteryear to mark our 40th anniversary, Katharine Swindells, Jess McCabe and Faima Bakar return to the first decade of the 21st century

A timeline of housing history – the 2010s to present day
In our final trip back in time to celebrate Inside Housing’s 40th anniversary, Hannah Fearn, Jess McCabe and Faima Bakar revisit the 2010s and 2020s, and look at how we reported on the big stories