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is remarkable, and will be admitted at once by anyone who will visit
the particular houses named, those in Finck Street and Dunkirk
Street (Change Alley) being, in comparision with the others, inhabited
by better class working classes.
Despite the real " mode) " Blocks, to which reference has
been made, no new Blocks should be allowed to be erected in the
Bishop's and Prince's Wards, in the particularly unsuitable area
with which this Report deals ; and this official advice is given in
view of a rumour to the effect that a well-known Philanthropic
Trust is in negotiation for a large site (in the neighbourhood of
Broad and Tin worth Streets), upon which it is intended to erect
blocks of tenemented dwellings. The Council should refuse its
consent, if and when asked, to the erection of such Blocks in that
particular crowded district.
The real demand amongst the working classes of the Borough
is, generally speaking, for cottage property of various sizes for separate
occupation, or for joint occupation, preferably not more than
two families to a house, or the small tenemented houses (not more
than three-storeyed) —such dwellings (each separately contained)
as have been, or are being, supplied by the Duchy of Cornwall and
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on their respective Kennington
and New Cut Estates.
Judging by the success of what has been done officially in the
past by systematic house-to-house inspections and the serving of
sanitary notices and closing orders under the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, and the
Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, and having regard to the
private schemes that have been carried out and are at present in
hand or under consideration, or should be under consideration, there
does not appear to be any need for a wholesale area condemnation
and clearance scheme by the London County Council in so far as the
Borough of Lambeth is concerned. Indeed, the practical initial
difficulty in connection with such a scheme would be to decide where
to begin and where to end, as there still remain, within the Inner
Wards of the Borough, houses and streets of houses and several (comparatively
few) courts and alleys and cul-de-sacs, consisting of
houses, which are old, dilapidated and worn-out, being in many
instances a hundred years old or more. Further, the displacement
of tenants that would naturally ensue, if such a wholesale scheme
were carried out and the houses closed and demolished, would