London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Battersea 1924

Report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea for the year 1924

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ment to be recorded in this respect in the Annual Report for 1924.
As there is no available building land in Battersea relief from the
present congestion and overcrowding can only be obtained by the
provision of an adequate number of working-class dwellings outside
the Borough. In this connection, in order to assist the Borough
Councils in alleviating cases of special hardship and overcrowding,
the London County Council proposed, in a letter dated 30th October,
as an experiment for the period of one year, to apportion among
the Metropolitan Borough Councils a certain number of new
dwellings on the basis of the number and proportion of inhabitants
in each borough living more than two persons per room according
to the census of 1921. The number of new dwellings to be allocated
to applicants from Battersea under this scheme is to be at the rate of
15 per 1,000 houses in the Housing Estates in course of development
by the County Council. It is estimated that Battersea's share in
this allocation will be only 20 dwellings. Advantage has been
taken by the Borough Council, so far as it goes, of this proposal,
and selected applications were on the instructions of the Housing
Committee sent to the London County Council. Unfortunately,
this concession to the needs of the housing situation in Battersea
will have little effect in the relief of overcrowding.
New Houses Provided by the Borough Council.
No new houses were erected by the Borough Council during
1924.
New Houses Erected by Private Enterprise.
During 1924 fifteen new houses were erected by private enterprise
; six on what is known as the Battersea Rise Estate (Chatto
and Wisley Roads); four in Sudbrooke Road; four in Ramsden
Road ; and one in Nightingale Lane.

New dwellings, as under, were in course of erection but were not completed at the end of the year:—

Battersea Rise4 flats.
Grandison Road2 houses.
Nightingale Lane3 houses.
Sudbrooke Road2 houses.

Repair of Unfit Houses.
The repair of unfit houses was rigorously enforced during
1924, as in the four preceding years, and the large number of houses
found on inspection to be more or less seriously defective or
insanitary were reported to the Housing and Health Committees
for action under the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1919, or
the Public Health (London) Act, 1891.
The policy of dealing with the more seriously defective houses
under Section 28 of the 1919 Housing Act, and the procedure