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87
Housing.
General Housing Conditions.
The acuteness of the Housing question has shown little
abatement, if any, during the year 1921. The amount of
overcrowding is considerable, and in some areas of the
Borough, as shown by the numerous cases brought to light as
a result of investigation, is of a gross and deplorable
character, five, six, or seven persons in a single family living in
one room. The very large number of applications—which is
greatly in excess of the accommodation available—for the
new tenements built, or in course of building, by the Council,
even when the whole of the Council's Housing scheme is completed,
as is expected it will be in the summer of 1922—further
points to the urgency of the housing problem in Battersea.
There is, of course, no probability of providing houses
sufficient to meet the demand in the Borough itself. There is
practically no available building ground left in Battersea, and
any efforts to meet the demand for additional houses to anything
like the extent needed will have to be met by building
schemes outside the Borough, or by a migration of part of the
inhabitants elsewhere.
There is, so far as existing conditions show, no reason in
the near future to anticipate any variations in the population,
their housing conditions, or social status.
Overcrowding.
The amount of overcrowding existing in the Borough,
especially in the poorer quarters, is considerable, and is one
of the most serious features of the present housing shortage.
The factors contributing to this undesirable and insanitary
state of things are the increased cost of living, dearness of
transport, and the demand for housing accommodation.
Occupiers of houses are tempted by the high rents obtainable to
sublet part of their own frequently inadequate accommodation,
and workers, anxious to be near their work so as to avoid high
transport fares, are forced to take such housing accommodation
as they can obtain under the circumstances. The extent to
which overcrowding exists in the Borough it will be possible
to gauge more fully when the complete Census returns are
published, but that it exists to a seriously undesirable extent
has been already indicated.
The measures which are being taken by the Council to meet
overcrowding are, unfortunately, limited by the extent of the
available building sites in the Borough. During the year the
following additional housing accommodation, under Assisted
Housing schemes, was provided by the Council.