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These dwellings, together with the Council's properties in Kenley Street, Hesketh Place,
Runcorn Place, Sirdar Road, Virginia Place and Bosworth Road, are managed on the Octavia Hill
system by a group of women house property managers.
A SUMMARY OF THE STEPS TAKEN IN 1926 TO INCREASE HOUSING
ACCOMMODATION.
The new accommodation provided in the Borough during 1926 by the Council has furnished
homes for approximatly 180 persons. The additional housing accommodation provided in 1926
by private enterprise has found homes for approximately 200 persons.
It is estimated that approximately 82 large single-family houses have been converted by
private persons or companies into self-contained maisonettes and thus accommodation for 82
families has been converted into accommodation for 265 families, an increase for 183 families or 902.
persons.
The Council during the year entered into an agreement with the London County Council
wherebv 99 houses on the new County Council Wormholt Estate will be reserved for Kensington
families nominated by the Borough Council. The amount payable by the Borough Council for
this special allocation is £1 per house per annum for a period of 20 years. It is not expected
that these houses will be ready for occupation before the end of 1927.
In addition, the Housing Department of the London County Council have accepted 21
Kensington families as tenants of houses on various County Council Estates, with the result
that approximately 100 persons have left the Borough, thus reducing the housing shortage in
Kensington.
MEASURES TAKEN TO DEAL WITH INSTANCES OF OVERCROWDING AND
INDECENT OCCUPATION DISCOVERED.
In Kensington at the 1921 Census there were 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 114 persons per room. Even in the most congested part of the Borough,
namely, 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 overcrowding discovered, mainlv 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 verymuch
better and more satisfactory accommodation.
Both in 1925 and 1926, the Sanitary Inspectors served Intimation Notices for overcrowding in
every case where a house let in lodgings, whether registered or not, did not provide each person;