ABSTRACT
With the failure of Cross’s Act high hopes and spectacular policy initiatives faded from the scene. National governments, unwilling to mount any decisive attack on the financial constraints which lay at the heart of the problem, thrust responsibility for the slum firmly back upon the local authorities. The emphasis was to be on effective administration coming to grips with the slum at the detailed local level in an inevitably lengthy struggle. The role of the state would be simply to set the framework of enabling legislation and to see that the local authorities performed their duties. As far as London was concerned, this was to be of considerable significance, for it contributed to the pressures on Parliament to bring the Board of Works to an end and to install a directly elected government for the whole of London. It cannot be denied, of course, that the advent of the Council brought with it a resurgence of expectations, but these were mainly centred on the vigorous nature of its approach and on its determination to fulfill its responsibilities.
