The outbreak of the Second World War saw the introduction of emergency measures to extend rent control and direct construction industry activity away from house building in support of the war effort. These measures marked an important turning point in housing policy; and bomb damage, low rates of residential building and maintenance left a very different housing situation at the end of the war than in 1939. Wartime controls were only slowly relaxed in a managed post-war reconstruction that required rent controls to continue and that prioritised building that would contribute to economic recovery. Increased subsidies enabled council house building to outstrip private building. Housing policy was not so radically reformed as other parts of the welfare state in this period but played an important part in the new welfare state and redistribution; measures: limiting rents meant that housing was a key element in its implementation if not design. By the early 1950s private sector housebuilding had recovered and there were actions to decontrol rents, but these were not effective before 1957 when new decontrol measures and slum clearance policies marked an important shift in approaches to housing policy.