Suchergebnisse

The Housing Act, 1969, introduced more generous financial assistance for people wishing to improve and modernise 'sound older houses'. The standard grant now covers half the cost of improvement up to a normal maximum of £200. Discretionary grants aiming at a more generous level of improvement or the conversion of houses of unsatisfactory size into, say, flats, were increased to maxima of £1000 for improvement and £1200 for conversion. Additional finance, whilst important in explaining the recent increase in the numbers of both types of grant is, however, only one of the relevant factors to be considered when looking at the possibilities of yet further and needed increases in the rate of improvement. Increases in finance presuppose both a knowledge of possibilities and an incentive to realise them on the part of the householder, as well as an assumption of a capacity or at least an elasticity in the supply of other relevant factors of production. The purpose of this article is to identify and examine those factors which may act as constraints upon the speed with which improvement policies can be implemented, and therefore we look at both the demand and the supply side.