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116
There are some hopes of acquiring other houses
and treating them in the same way, but though as
was to be expected, owners now open their mouths
wider, thinking they see a prospect of their property
being improved.
This is doubly unfortunate, as one of the difficulties
experienced is that evicted tenants are taken
by other landlords and no questions are asked, and
the new methods of management are freely criticised.
The improvement of the area would, in my opinion,
be materially expedited if Heckfield Place could be
opened up to the world. At present it is completely
hemmed in and hidden away, and nobody, excepting
the occupiers, the police, a few official and social
workers, see anything of it, and it is probably owing
to this that the conditions in it are worse than in the
adjoining Avenues, which all open directly into the
Fulham Road.
The opening up could be effected by removing
the block of houses forming the east side of Lodge
Avenue and the west side of Walham Avenue, and
continuing the road formed through into Burnthwaite
Road, or the houses on the east side of the western
arm of Rock Avenue might be similarly treated. This
might be done under Section 38 of the Housing of
the Working Classes Act, 1890, which gives power to
the local authority under certain conditions to demolish
any building, which though not in itself unfit
for habitation, is so situated that by reason of its
proximity to any other buildings, it prevents proper
measures being carried into effect for remedying any
nuisance injurious to health, or other evils complained
of in resDect of such other buildings.
The persons displaced could, I think, be re-housed
on the vacant land at the corner of Lillie Road and
Jervis Road, which is now used by travelling shows,
round-a-bouts, etc., and is generally more or less a
nuisance.