London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
London County Council 1911
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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184
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1911.
Closing and
demolition
orders.
Among the persons to be displaced by the scheme are a number of street traders (costermongers
and the like), who at present keep their barrows, etc., in the cul-de-sac roads, courts and alleys opposite
their dwellings. A suggestion being made by the Board that provision for the storage of barrows and
carts should be made, the Council replied that it saw no difficulty in providing sheds on the Tabardstreet
area for the convenience of street traders, but that stabling accommodation did not appear to
be required.
With regard to the proposed open space, which is to be about acres in extent, the Board
considered that the cost of acquiring the land was properly part of the cost of the improvement scheme,
and that the retention and use of the land in question as an open space was an essential part of a
scheme for rehousing in tenement blocks. The Board was of opinion, therefore, that the cost of
acquiring the land proposed to be used for the open space should be borne as part of the cost of the
improvement scheme, i.e., charged to the Dwelling House Improvement Fund and constituted a
special county expense to which the City would not contribute. The Board, however, agreed that
the cost of laying out and maintaining the open space should be charged to the general county account
out of which expenditure on parks is met.
The order of the Local Government Board confirming the scheme had not been received by
the end of the year under review.
Particulars are now available of the action taken by the metropolitan borough councils under
sections 17 and 18 of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, for dealing, by way of closing and
demolition orders, with those dwelling houses which have been represented to them as being “in a
state so dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation." Closing and demolition
orders were a part of the procedure authorised by the Housing of the Working Classes Act,
1890, but whereas under that Act a closing order could only be made by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction
on the application of a local authority, the power to make such an order is by the Act of
1909 entrusted to the local authorities, subject to a right of appeal to the Local Government Board
by any owner of the dwelling house in respect of which the order is made.
The figures given in the following table, which are taken from a memorandum dated 9th November, 1911, issued by the Local Government Board, indicate the action taken during the year ended 31st March, 1911, so far as the information could be obtained, and for comparison the corre-spording figures are also given for the year ended 31st March, 1910, during which the new procedure was in force for about four months, and for the year ended 31st March, 1909, during the whok of which the old procedure was in force—
| Year. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1910-11. | 1909-10. | 1908-5. | |
| Number of houses in respect of which representations were made to the metropolitan borough councils | 1,383 | 82 | 21 |
| Number of houses made fit for human habitation or closed or demolished voluntarily without the issue of a closing order | 83 | 19 | 8 |
| Number of houses in respect of which closing orders were made | 223 | 35 | 5 |
| Number of houses in respect of which closing orders were determined | 3 | - | Information not available |
| Number of houses in respect of which orders for demolition were made | 2 | - | - |
Capital expenditure
on
clearance.
The amount expended on capital account by the late Metropolitan Board of Works and the
Council up to 31st March, 1912, in respect of the clearance of insanitary areas (exclusive of the cost
of erecting new buildings), amounted to £3,422,677 18s. 6d., while the receipts derived from rents and
sales of land, including the amounts charged against the accounts of the dwellings for the housing
values of sites appropriated for that purpose, together with the contributions from local authorities
towards the cost of carrying out Part II. schemes, amounted to £906,740 1s. 1d., thus leaving the net
expenditure at £2,515,937 17s. 5d.
Rehousing in
connection
with improvements,
etc.
In carrying out public improvements other than schemes under the Housing Acts, involving
a statutory obligation to rehouse, the Council has displaced 12,244 persons of the working classes, and
has provided accommodation in new dwellings for 12,902 persons in lieu of that destroyed.
During the year the Local Government Board approved modification schemes releasing the
Council from the obligation, under the approved schemes for rehousing persons displaced by the
construction of Rotherhithe-tunnel, to erect dwellings on the Albion-street and Clarence-street sites,
Rotherhithe, and the second portion of the London-street site, Ratcliff. Re-housing accommodation
for 1,990 persons had already been provided, as against accommodation required to be provided under
the approved rehousing schemes for 2,842 persons, leaving an obligation outstanding to erect further
dwellings on the three sites mentioned. Having regard to the large number of empty tenements in
the vicinity, the Council contended that adequate accommodation for those persons of the working
class not already provided for in the dwellings erected by the Council was available in the districts
affected, and the Board concurred in this view.
During the year the Local Government Board released the Council from rehousing
obligations as regards 176 persons of the working classes displaced from properties over which com-