View report page

60
areas respectively, the total number of houses involved being 811
Copies of the representation were sent to the Ministry of Health and
the County Council.
The building of houses at Downham and Becontree is useful for
those who can afford to pay the rents and who do not need to be at
their work in Deptford very early in the morning.
Apart from the 811 houses involved in the above-mentioned areas
there is great need for houses for hundreds of families. Every week
letters are received from people earnestly setting forth their case for a
house and we can do little for them.
Within recent times 1 have personally examined and reported on
some of the houses involved in the 1920 representation. The following
describes the conditions found at one or two of such inspections:—
Providence Place and Wybourne Cottages.
There are seven houses in Providence Place and five in Wybourne
Cottages; these are back-to-back houses, the atmosphere being
stagnant. Natural lighting is poor, the staircases are steep and
dangerous ; the premises are old and decayed and so is the plaster.
Occasionally one conies across a defective roof and a bulging wall
Wybourne Cottages form the reverse side of the back-to-back. Here
again there are steep and dangerous staircases, old and decayed wood
and brickwork and stagnant air. One of the houses is closed. A
Coroner's inquest was held on a man who died, if I remember rightly,
from shock and burns in this house.
Speedwell Street.
There are houses here in which are steep and dangerous staircases,
bulged walls and settled, rotten brickwork, defective floors, old
plastering and dampness. In one house I found three families, consisting
of seven adults and one child ; there were three rooms. This
is a horrible place, and if the ground floor caught fire, the people
upstairs would be trapped. The premises are let as furnished rooms.
The house is approached by walking down some steps : one enters a
passage, and on the left is the ground floor room. This basement
room is small, dirty, dark and dilapidated, 4½ feet below the pavement
level. The stairs leading to the first floor are dark, winding, steep and
dangerous, and some of the treads are defective. The first floor room