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61
Local Government Board mentions, there lias been recently erected close
to this suggested site a large lodging house accommodating (600 or 700
persons.
(4) A small plot of land alongside of Purchese Stroet and close to Aldenham
Street is reported to have been already ear-marked by the Midland
Railway Company, for the purpose of erecting dwelling houses of the
class required in that neighbourhood, and there would also be the same
objection to acquire this site of the Midland Railway Company as in the
case of No. 2, as the Company demolished the dwellings already existing
on that site and have not replaced them.
(5) Equity Buildings have been much improved of late by the pressure brought
to bear by the Vestry upon the owner, and a large amount of money
having been spent upon them to render the buildings fit for occupation
and habitable, it would be undesirable to demolish them.
(6) The site adjoining Early Mews is over a mile north from the northern area,
and nearly a mile and a half from the southern area, in addition to which
it is entirely surrounded by houses, and therefore a very undesirable place
upon which to erect Artizans' Dwellings. Objections were raised on
behalf of the Vestry, on more than one occasion, to the Foundling Hospital
allowing Artizans' Dwellings to be constructed on the Compton Place site,
as totally unfit for the purpose, being entirely surrounded by houses.
Early Mews is a similar site.
(7) As regards the Stone Yard off Great College Street, which presumably
refers to the Stone Yard on the bank of the Regent's Canal, north of
the Refuse Destructor, it is nut a fit place for erecting Artizans' Dwellings,
even if it were possible to obtain a stone yard elsewhere without pulling
down existing dwellings occupied by the artizan class.
With regard to the general aspect of the question, it was pointed out that the
district in which the two insanitary areas are situated, viz., Ward 8, is one that is
completely built upon, possessing not only no spare land for building, but being
also sadly deficient in open space, more so than any other part of St. Paucras, and
that the same applies to the districts immediately around this Ward. One of the
reasons for demolishing the buildings on this site is because they are packed too
closely together, and house too many persons on the areas, and the only manner in
which it would be possible to re-house a larger number than proposed on the same
site would be by reproducing in a greater or less degree the very conditions
the Vestry is desirous of abolishing. As the district is covered with buildings, the
only means by which additional land can be, provided is by the demolition of
further buildings, a proceeding which would render it still more difficult to re-house
the additional displaced population.
The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, Part II., under which the
schemes have been framed, provides, by Section 40, that "the Local Government
Board shall in any Order sanctioning a scheme under this part of this Act require
the insertion in the scheme of such provisions (if any) for the dwelling accommodation
of persons of the working classes displaced by the scheme as seem to the Board
required by the circumstances." The Act therefore contemplates the possibility of
schemes in which no provision for re-housing will be made or required.