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129
HOUSING.
Bastwick Street.—The proprietor of some of the houses in
Bastwick Street wrote a letter in June, 1910, to the President
of the Local Government Board suggesting that Bastwick Street
and its houses might well be considered to be suitable premises
for action under the Housing and Town Planning Acts.
A copy of the letter was sent to the Borough Council asking
for the observations of the Council thereon. Every house in
Bastwick Street, therefore, was very carefully inspected by the
Medical Officer of Health, and a report on the conditions found
presented to the Public Health Committee.
A digest of the report is presented below.
The width of the street varies from 15 ft. to 21 ft. 6 in., the
carriageway ranges from 8 ft. to 8 ft. 6 in.
At the time of inspection there were in the street 392 rooms
for letting, of which 90 were empty. Those accommodated 175
families, consisting of 473 adults and 239 children. There were
87 one-roomed tenements.
The average death rates for eight recent years were for the
whole street 35.5 per 1,000, for Nos. 16-34 inclusive 41.6 per
1,000. During the same eight years, the borough general death
rate had ranged from 19.1 to 22.8 per 1,000.
The average phthisis death rate for the whole street was 5.61
per 1,000, for the special group of houses 7.06 per 1,000. The
phthisis death rate for the borough for the same period had
ranged from 2.13 to 2.60 per 1,000.
The infectious disease notifications were for the whole street
equal to a rate of 15.1 per 1,000, for the special group 15.7 per
thousand. The corresponding rate for the borough was 7.5 per
1,000.
The special group, Nos. 16-34 inclusive, was represented to
the Public Health Committee as unfit for human habitation, each
house on its merits, apart from the foregoing general considerations
based on disease incidence and death rates.
Briefly, the conditions found were as follows:—