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The question of lack of amenities does not ariseandeven the absence of artificial lighting,
a piped hot water supply or a bathroom does not render a house legally unfit to live in.
It will be appreciated that where a local authority has ambitious schemes for redevelopment
the position of the Medical Officer of Health can become one of potential difficulty. It is easily
overlooked that he is a statutory technical officer charged with implementing the law and that he
is appointed to serve the public and not solely to further the interests of the Council which employs
him. Indeed, were the position otherwise it requires little imagination to realise that under different
Circumstances a Medical Officer of Health could be put in an equally embarrassing position by a
Council which wished him to withhold taking necessary slum clearance action to suit its purposes.
Where his technical advice is at variance with the desires of the Council he.can find himself in a
difficult position..This possibility is, of course, well recognisedand to protect him in the conscientious
performance of his duties his tenure of office, under normal conditions, carries safeguards.
Some of those who want to improve housing conditions in Fulham by getting rid of old properties
lacking amenities have naturally been disappointed to find that such houses cannot be brought
within the scope of unfit houses and cleared as slums.
To try and help to resolve this impasse I suggested to the Health Committee that the present
legal powers, which only recognise fit and unfit houses, are too restrictive What is required is
either a new set of standards for assessing unfitness, which would take into account the absence
of amenities which are today regarded as essential in newly built homes, or the introduction of a
legally recognised third category of property - substandard which would cover properties lacking
essential amenities such as a bathroom, food store, fuel store, piped hot water supply, indoor W.C.,
etc., and which it was considered could better be dealt with by demolition and redevelopment of the
area than by individual improvement grants Whereas slum property can be acquired cheaply - compensation
often being only a few pounds - substandard properties which the local authority wished
to acquire would have to camycompensation at a much higher rate but still less than market value.
The above idea was accepted in principle by the Health and Housing Committees and it has
been very gratifying to find that this latter suggestion was being active I y pursued at a national
level by the Council. If legislation ultimately appears covering this type of problem, it should
prove of benefit in many of the older densely populated areas of the country as well as in London.
There is no doubt that the housing problem in London is a difficult one, due to more people
wanting houses than there are houses available. Unfortunately, redevelopment schemes at the best
only rehouse the number originally on the site and quite freque ntly end up by rehousing fewer than
the number originally living on the site This comes about due to the application of rigid standards
of maximum permitted population per acre which have been laid down in planning schemes.
It is, therefore, obvious that if more people are to be rehoused in London without interfering
with open spaces then the permitted density per acre must be increased It would be most useful
if the present density standards were to be carefully examined to see if the assumptions on which
they are basedare really valid.
From the health point of view it is completely overlooked that in London ar least, whilst we
i nsist on a maximum density of not more than 200 persons per acre as regards our homes, we spend
a great proportion of our lives at far higher densities We are packed like sardines in trains and
buses and at sports meetings. At theatres dances, cinemas and other entertainments, on the
beaches and on the roads, we pay scant attention to density and apply no comparable standards.
Yet no-one has so far suggested that these types of overcrowding should be controlled on health
grounds
Obviously, from the health angle the housing density in many parts of London could be in-