View report page

77
Housing.
It cannot be said that the urgency of the Housing problem
had appreciably diminished during 1920. The unsatisfactory
conditions as to overcrowding and congestion—especially in
the lower Wards of the Borough—referred to in the Annual
Report for 1919 were still, so far as the provision of new
housing is concerned, unabated. Active measures to provide
new working-class houses, as far as the land available in the
Borough permitted, were being undertaken by the Council;
and the restrictions as to building on the vacant land on the
Latchmere Estate were, after some difficulty, overcome by the
insertion of a clause in the London County Council (General
Powers) Bill, which passed into law on the 4th August, 1920.
Up to the end of the year the new tenements, for which
plans and lay-outs were prepared, or those already in course
of construction, were not yet advanced enough for occupation.
By far the most profitable work undertaken by the
Council during the year was the repair of unfit working-class
houses under the Public Health and Housing Acts, especially
by means of Section 28 of the Housing Act of 1919, and the
results obtained in that respect were most satisfactory.
The acute condition of the housing question—the result
largely of the difficulties arising out of the war—rendered it
inexpedient (except in very exceptional circumstances, e.g.,
where the houses were empty and derelict, and the owner or
owners concerned failed to render them fit for human
habitation) to represent dwelling-houses to the Council for
Closing Orders under Section 17 of the Housing Act, 1909.
The early and vigorous application of the powers of the
Council under the 1919 Housing Act was therefore carried
out systematically in connection with all seriously defective
house property.
The work of systematic inspection of insanitary dwellinghouses,
which, on the return to pre-war conditions, was begun
early in the summer of 1919, and became gradually more
active after the rapid survey of the housing needs of the
Borough called for by the Ministry of Health on the coming
into force of the 1919 Housing Act, was pushed forward with
much energy and thoroughness during 1920. The Housing
Committee appointed by the Council on 10th December, 1919,
spared no effort to see that the powers delegated to them by
the Council under the Housing Acts were utilised fully in
securing that the housing conditions in their district might be,
as far as possible, improved.