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Housing of the Working Classes. 151
undertaken to pay to the borough council at the rate of £155 a year in respect of the additional expenditure
which will be incurred in maintaining the road while it is being used by the Council or its contractors
for the cartage of heavy building materials. A plot of land on the estate about l½ acres in area
adjoining Wormwood-scrubs has been allocated for the erection of a permanent school building in place
of the temporary structure now in use.
Cottages capable of accommodating 191 persons were completed during the year 1914 at an
approximate cost for buildings and plans of £7,701. The erection of new cottages designed to accommodate
785 persons and other works incidental to the development of the various estates were undertaken
during the year, and the total cost thereof is estimated at £33,641.
Dwellings
provided by
the Council.
The Council's dwellings on 31st December, 1914, contained accommodation for 57,387 persons,
reckoned on the basis of two persons a room.
The total expenditure on capital account on the Council s working-class dwellings and estates
up to 31st March, 1915, amounted to £3,056,646. This sum represents the actual expenditure incurred
up to that date, and does not include liabilities under contracts for buildings in course of erection.
The capital expenditure during the year 1914-15 amounted to £34,733. The financial results of the
dwellings are shown in the memorandum by the Comptroller of the Council on the accounts for 1914-15
(Chapter XXVIII).
At the request of the Local Government Board the Council arranged for Carrington House,
Deptford, to be taken over on 17th October, 1914, for the accommodation of Belgian war refugees, upon
the understanding that there should be no profit or loss to the Council. The Board withdrew the refugees
from the house on 7th November, 1914, there then being no lack of other accommodation for them.
The house being empty the Council arranged, at the request of the military authorities, for the reception
of several companies of National reservists who remained in occupation for three weeks, the catering
being carried on by the Council. The total payment made by the War Department in respect of the
accommodation and food amounted to £1,248 11s. 7½d., from which an allowance of £14 was made in
consideration of the assistance given by the soldiers in preparing food and in other directions. The
Local Government Board having intimated that it did not desire to re-enter into occupation, the house
was opened for the reception of lodgers on 12th December, 1914.
Carrington
House.
Portions of the yards at Boundary-street estate, Bethnal-green, and Herbrand-street dwellings,
St. Pancras, have been allocated for use as ambulance stations.
Boundarystreet
and
Herbrand-
street
estates.
With a view to the Council being kept informed as to the provision of working-class accommodation
in London and the adjoining districts, a return* is prepared each year showing the amount
of new accommodation provided and old accommodation destroyed. The return, which has been
prepared for the years 1902 to 1913 inclusive, gives the number of working-class tenements and rooms
provided in each borough or district and the rents at which they are let or to be let, and also particulars
of the demolitions which have taken place in each district during the year. The return for 1913 shows
that the amount of working-class accommodation in the county of London has remained practically
stationary for the year. In extra-London, i.e., the area known as Greater London exclusive of the
county of London, the number of rooms provided was 11,933 and the number demolished 983, or a net
addition of 10,950. The average weekly rents at which the new dwellings were let or to be be let were,
during 1913, 3s. 6d. a room in the central districts of London, 2s. 8d. in the outer districts of London
and 2s. 3d. in the extra-London districts.
New working-class
accommodation.
A revised account of the Council's housing work up to 31st December, 1912, has been published.‡
History of
housing
question,
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ACCOUNTS AND STATISTICS.
Working Clas Dwellings Accounts, 1914-15—Memorandum by the Comptroller of the
Council, (Mr. H. E. Haward).

Summary of
results of
year.
* New working -class accommodation.
‡ Housing of the Working Classes in London, 1855-1912.