Bomb damage, opportunity and rebuilding in post-war Britain

Abstract

This paper explores how wartime bomb destruction was mapped in various British towns and cities, the apparent extent of damage, and the extent to which the damage influenced post-war rebuilding. While it is often said that the destruction created the opportunity for reconstruction, how far was there a direct influence? The pre-war pressures to redevelop tightly packed, often medieval, city cores and the need to replace slum housing were also powerful pressures, hence the popular name for the first replanning legislation, the 1944 "Blitz and Blight Act". The paper also examines conflicts between local claims of the extent of damage and those finally accepted by central government. Overall the paper uses the catastrophe of wartime damage to question the urban morphological concept of the "morphological frame" which, under more normal circumstances, is held to contain and constrain development.