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127
existed in the Borough, it being felt that before the Borough
Council embarked on any scheme which involved a claim on the
rates, it was important to discover how urgent was the need of
increased accommodation.
In accordance therefore with the instructions of the Council on
October 5th, a return of empty dwelling-houses and tenements in
the Borough was made. The figures of this return were obtained
from three sources, namely : a careful enumeration made throughout
the Borough by the sanitary inspectors, facts kindly supplied
by the superintendents of the model dwellings (with one exception),
and advertisements appearing on one date in the local press. There
is an almost daily variation in the number of tenements to let in a
district like Finsbury, and these figures can only be taken as
correct on the day of counting (October 12). At the same time it
is clear that, if anything, the returns are under-estimatecl, as there
are certainly tenements to let from time to time of which no public
notice is given.
The character of these vacant houses and rooms, of course, varied
considerably, some being tenement property of a rather poor
description and other vacant houses and rooms being of a much
higher standard. The term "tenement" is used in a general way,
for convenience, to cover all rooms which were to let and which
were less than whole houses. As far as such figures were obtainable
the rentals in each case were stated in the report issued.
There are in the Borough 36 sets of " model" dwellings accommodating
some 17,000 persons. According to the returns kindly
supplied by the superintendents (with the exception of St. Bartholomew
Buildings), it appeared that there were at the time of
reporting 64 vacant tenements in these model dwellings comprising
165 rooms.
The empty "closed" houses on the insanitary areas or widening
schemes under the London County Council and under the Borough
Council were not included; nor were the empty houses in the
proposed housing scheme in City Road included. All vacant
business premises and offices were also excluded.