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141
notices against him has considerable advantages to recommend it,
and affords the owner ample opportunity of discharging his
duties to his property and tenants. I have to report that in the
following five areas in which this course has been adopted it has
resulted in each case in the owner himself undertaking the
necessary sanitary repair rather than the Local Authority. This
is, in my judgment, as it should be. In the event of noncompliance,
or non-acceptance of responsibility for the insanitary
conditions existing, it would, of course, be necessary for me to
advise the Borough Council to proceed with strictness against
such owners. The record is as follows :—
Area A.—This area is situated off Sermon Lane and contained
12 houses, two of which were unoccupied. All the houses were
worn out and insanitary. It was impossible to make them
habitable without rebuilding, atid the owners fully recognised this.
The houses consisted, as a rule, of a ground floor of two rooms,
and a first floor of two rooms. The ground floor of one of the
houses was used as a store room, and the second floor of the same
house as a bootmaker's shop. Otherwise the houses were used
exclusively for residential purposes. The population inhabiting
these houses numbered 53. The owner decided to close the
houses, and the closure and demolition was commenced and completed
during 1902. At the time of closure several of the houses
were empty. The owner, who possesses other houses in the immediate
vicinity, arranged for housing the displaced persons. It
should be added that the owner of this property was in every
way desirous of meeting his obligations.
Area B consists of two small courts containing eight houses.
Thirty-nine persons reside there.
(a) Caroline Place is a cul de sac on the west side of Baker's
Row, Farringdou Road. It is entered by a covered passage
between No- 7 and No. 8, Baker's Row. The passage is some 18