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6
Working Classes Act, 1890) to the London County
Council, that the area was suitable for dealing with
as an improvement scheme.
After considerable correspondence, the London
County Council, in their wisdom, decided not to deal
with the area as represented to them, putting forward
as the reason for this action, or rather want of action,
that the said area was likely to be dealt with in the near
future, by means of private enterprise.
As your Committee are aware, no evidence of this
suggested private enterprise could then be discovered
by us, and as a simple matter of fact, from that time to
this, such private enterprise has not been heard of, and
the district remains, in all prime essentials, in the condition
it then was, save only that your officers have paid
considerable attention to inspecting and the service of
notices for what may be called mere ordinary sanitary
upkeep.
Your Committee have felt that action of this kind
has become exhausted, and has long since been futile,
simply because the mere service of notices and the
making of a few closing orders only results in the
patching up of a house here and there, which house is
re-opened and then again let for a dwelling.
This has happened in certain of the instances on
two, three, and more occasions.
Moreover, your Committee felt that no amount of
repair would make houses of this kind completely satisfactory
for any length of time, and that in addition to