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159
coupled with strict sanitary supervision and enforcement of the
Public Health Act, will ultimately solve the insanitary housing
problem in the Borough. But in the meantime, and during the
transition period, the problem is an acute one.
The difficulty of the housing question in Finsbury is of course
that the price of land and of building is too high to permit of
letting at low rents. The prices are such as can only be paid for
commercial concerns. It is this of course which also leads to the
overcrowding of houses per acre in Finsbury. In London there
are eight houses to the acre, in Finsbury there are 19. There is
also considerable overcrowding of persons, therefore merely
increasing house accommodation is not only impracticable but is
inadvisable. To rehouse large numbers of people within some
Boroughs may be and doubtless is 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. To this there is one exception,
namely, the rehousing of persons displaced by law from insanitary
property. This would appear to be a requirement; and the
Housing Committee of the Borough Council has endeavoured to
meet it. But owing to the force of facts above quoted they have
not up to the present met with any success. The Committee has
reported as follows to the Council:—
Resolved—To report to the Council that the Committee have since
their appointment considered the particulars of a considerable
number of sites both within and without the Borough, many of
which they have personally inspected, and have caused to be
prepared plans and statistics of live definite schemes, but that
they reluctantly find themselves at present unable owing to the
many difficulties attending the housing question in this Borough,
to submit to the Council any schemes which would not entail a
greater or lesser charge upon the rates ; and to recommend that
the matter be again referred to the Committee if and when reappointed.
The policy which has been adopted by this Department since
1901, may be expressed in a few words as follows :—