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159
The improvement schemes now in the process of being
carried out (under the London County Council) will displace
1,700 persons. Other areas which are about to be,
or are being, dealt with will displace two or three hundred
more. There will also be other persons displaced owing to the
substitution of warehouses and factories for dwelling-houses.
At present, accommodation is to be provided in the Borough by
the London County Council for the 1,700 persons displaced.
And further accommodation in the Borough ought to be provided,
if practicable, for some, at all events, of the remaining persons
displaced.* These matters are receiving the consideration of the
Housing Committee. But merely increasing the house accommodation
is not the whole of the solution, or, indeed, the most
important part of the solution, of the housing problem in
Finsbury. To re-house large numbers of persons within some
Boroughs may be the primary and essential remedy. In
Finsbury, such a policy, on the part of the Local Authority,
might seriously and permanently aggravate the evil conditions at
present existing. †
The policy which has been adopted by this Department since
1901, is, in my judgment, that which, in the long run, will prove
most efficacious and also most equitable. Expressed in a few
words it is :—
1. The strict sanitary supervision and maintenance of
existing houses.
2. The strict enforcement of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, as it affects house property and overcrowding,
as far as is compatible with justice and
equity.
0 The applicabilty of the method of enlargement and improvement of existing
houses as carried out by Miss Octavia Hill in London, and by others in Glasgow,
should have due consideration before houses are demolished as wholly irremediable,
and before new houses are built.
† It will be understood that this remark does not apply to re-housing persons
displaced by sanitary schemes under the Housing of the Working Classes Act,
nor to re-housing in suburban or outside districts. But re-housing in Finsbury
must almost of necessity be re-housing the very poor upon very costly land, and
so eventually necessitating a large charge on the rates.