View report page

48
The careful checking of schedules of repairs, the numerous interviews with owners and the
daily supervision of the repair work in progress has proved a greater task than was contemplated,
and at the end of the year it appeared that the work might have to be curtailed. It would have
been a matter of regret if the satisfactory progress in the reconditioning of working class houses
in the borough had to be checked owing to the inadequacy of the Council's staff for the purpose
of supervision, therefore the Council, early in 1930, decided to appoint a temporary sanitary
inspector to take charge of one of the districts in order to allow an experienced officer to undertake
the work of preparing notices and schedules, interviewing owners and builders, and supervising
repair work carried out by owners.
A very good standard of work is being obtained under the operation of Section 3, and recently
it has been noted that there has even been an improvement in this standard and that owners are
responding more readily to the notices served upon them.
Thus there appear to be good grounds for believing that the procedure under Section 3 will
prove of considerable value in improving the working class houses generally within the borough
Inspections of Hotels, Boarding-Houses and Restaurants.—The report dealing with the work
carried out under this heading will be found on page 33 in the section "Sanitary Circumstances
of the Area."

As only 29 summonses were eventually issued in 371 cases of overcrowding, and only two
summonses in regard to 318 cases of indecent occupation in the five years, it will be seen that
658 families were able to improve their accommodation without the Council having to resort to
extreme measures. Moreover, the figures for 1928 and 1929, when compared with those for the
preceding years, suggest that those on whom notices were served for overcrowding had less
difficulty in securing alternative accommodation than was experienced in previous years.
At the commencement of 1925 a new step was adopted for the purpose of relieving cases of
overcrowding. The Public Health and Special Housing Committees arranged that immediately
a new house provided by the Council had been let, the Town Clerk should supply me with
information as to the name and address of the future tenant. This information has enabled
officers of the Public Health Department to know several weeks in advance of rooms which would
become vacant, with the result that they have been able to approach the owners of these rooms
and urge that they might be let to Kensington families known to be living under overcrowded
conditions. The results obtained in the five years have been as follow:—
Number of Council houses let by Town Clerk and reported to the Medical
Officer of Health 65
Number of instances in which the rooms vacated by the 65 tenants have
been let to Kensington families whose previous accommodation was
unsatisfactory or overcrowded 45