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(6) Conversion of large houses into maisonettes.
Owners and builders, recognising the difficulty of maintaining large single-family houses owing
to post-war economic and domestic servant problems, have converted a number of these into selfcontained
flats or maisonettes. A careful examination of all the statistics and figures available
shows that approximately 800 of these houses have been converted into 2,775 maisonettes during
the past five or six years. Thus accommodation for 800 families has been converted into accommodation
for 2,775 families—an increase for 1,955 families or 8,800 people.
(7) Large houses occupied by one family at the end of the War now let to several families without
having been adapted for the purpose.
In addition to the 800 houses mentioned above, it is known that a number of better-class
houses which at the end of the War were let to one family are now providing quite satisfactory
accommodation for two or three families without having been converted into self-contained
maisonettes. The number of these houses cannot be calculated with any degree of accuracy, but
such information as I have been able to obtain indicates that in this way additional accommodation
has been found for at least 1,000 persons.
(8) New accommodation provided by the County Council outside the Borough for Kensington families.
Since October, 1924, the Housing Department of the County Council have accepted 41
Kensington families as tenants of houses on various County Council Estates, with the result that
approximately 200 persons have left the Borough, thus reducing the housing shortage in
Kensington.
a summary of results.
It will be seen that by the erection of new houses, conversion of houses into maisonettes, the
letting off of big houses to several families, etc., additional accommodation has been found in the
past five or six years for approximately 12,560 people. In addition, the shortage of housing
accommodation has been further reduced by the number of persons who have left the Borough
for County Council houses.
It is, of course, admitted that the new accommodation has not been occupied in every case
by Kensington people, buton the other hand many Kensington people have left the Borough on
securing homes in other areas.
It is also true that much of the accommodation is available only for those who can afford to
pay the necessarily high rents, but against this it must be remembered that quite a considerable
amount of the shortage experienced a few years ago was in respect of these persons, and when
they have been able to find satisfactory dwellings they have vacated rooms at lower rents which
persons in less satisfactory financial position can occupy.
In addition to the actual provision of new accommodation, the Council have taken steps to
deal with instances of overcrowding discovered and these activities, which have ameliorated the
conditions which existed, are discussed under the next heading.
III. MEASURES TAKEN TO DEAL WITH INSTANCES OF OVERCROWDING AND
INDECENT OCCUPATION DISCOVERED.
The second table in the Housing section of this report shows that in Kensington there were
at the Census of 1921, 194,381 rooms occupied by 158,399 persons in private families, with the
result that there was a proportion of more than one room per person. In the more thickly
populated northern half of the Borough, there were 77,061 rooms for 87,987 persons, or only 1T4
persons per room. Even in the most congested part of the Borough, namely, the Golborne Ward,
there were 15,855 rooms for 25,998 persons, giving a proportion of 1.64 persons per room. From
these figures it is clear that if the population of the Borough could be evenly distributed, there
would be no over-crowding in Kensington; indeed, there would be ample accommodation for all.
But this evidence does not allow the argument to be advanced that there is no overcrowding
problem, for it is obvious that it is quite impossible to pool all the housing accommodation in
the Borough and distribute the population evenly. The proportion of rooms to persons does,
however, lend support to the opinion that many cases of overcrowding could be ameliorated if the
tenants took steps to improve the conditions under which they live.
Recognising that the difficulty of finding housing accommodation has become less than in previous
years, the Public Health Committee in 1925 commenced to deal more actively with instances of
over-crowding discovered mainly with a view to inducing heads of overcrowded families to make a
search for more suitable accommodation. Many of the worst cases of overcrowding and indecent
occupation in recent years have been discovered in families where the sons and daughters have left
school and are at work earning good money. These families can often well afford very much
better and more satisfactory accommodation.