View report page

68
was held between the members of your Public Health
Committee and Messrs. Harris, Headlani and Smith,
the L.C.C. representatives for this Borough. At the
conference I described the present condition of the area
and detailed the steps I have taken to bring the matter
before the London County Council, with the result
that this authority finally declined to act on my
representations.
The Town Clerk shewed that no foundation existed
for the belief expressed by the Housing Committee of
L.C.C. that the area would shortly be developed by
private enterprise, he also pointed out that rehousing
was not absolutely necessary and that with the consent
of the Home Secretary the cleared site could be
utilized for other purposes. Any amount of sympathy
Was shewn by the Gentlemen from the Council but
they were unable to promise much help. They referred
to the fact that housing schemes in the past had been
unremunerative and had absorbed enormous sums of
money, and they expressed an unanimous opinion that
as economy was now the order of the day, no avoidable
expense was likely to be incurred by new Council.
Nothing resulted from this conference and no further
official communication has been received from Spring
Gardens. I have quite lost hope that any serious
attempt will be made to deal with this area under
Part I of the Housing Act. The project has been on
foot for over five years and all my endeavours to induce
the Council to accept my representations have ended
in failures. Our own local efforts in the way of continued
inspection and re-inspection and the enforcement
of such repairs as are possible have had this