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pregnancy would be detrimental to health. The certificate must state the exact medical or surgical
condition which renders further pregnancy harmful. When the certificate has been endorsed to the
effect that the patient has received birth control advice, it is forwarded to the Town Hall, where
it is examined by the appropriate committee, who resolve to make a grant if the facts are satisfactory.
During 1933, six applications were received and five were granted at a total cost to the council
of £1 5s. 0d.
TRAVELLING EXPENSES OF WOMEN BREAST-FEEDING INFANTS
ADMITTED TO HOSPITALS.
During the year, three applications were received for payment by the borough council of
travelling expenses to and from hospital of women who were breast-feeding infants admitted as
in-patients to hospitals for treatment. These were granted and the total payments amounted to
£2 5s. 4d.
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO THE BOROUGH MATERNITY AND
CHILD WELFARE COMMITTEE.
The advisory committee was established in '1920. The committees of the infant welfare
institutions in the borough each nominate yearly two of their members to serve on this committee,
which co-ordinates the work of the nine infant welfare centres, the four day nurseries, and the
baby clinic and hospital.
Amongst the many activities of this committee during the year was the preparation of a scheme
for the transfer of post-natal women attending infant welfare centres to the new gynaecological
clinic which has recently been established by the North Kensington Women's Welfare Centre at
No. 12, Telford Road.
The committee also reviewed the report of the medical officer of health on the high infant
mortality rate of 1932, and made valuable suggestions in regard to the existing services to the
maternity and child welfare committee. The ante-natal service provided by the voluntary
committees on behalf of the council also occupied the attention of the committee on several occasions,
and it was owing to their sympathetic help that the arrangement for one medical officer to take over
the whole of the ante-natal work at the infant welfare institutions was made so harmoniously with
the various voluntary institutions.
The advisory committee is of great value in maintaining efficiency and uniformity in the work
of the various voluntary institutions in the borough.
HOUSING.
SPECIAL POWERS FOR DEALING WITH UNDERGROUND ROOMS.
There are in North Kensington about 6,500 houses wherein the floor of the lowest or basement
rooms is below the street level. Approximately 1,000 of these houses are occupied by single families
in comfortable circumstances, or are boarding houses or residential hotels ; and the basement rooms
are used, as was originally intended, for cooking purposes, food storage, etc. In the remaining
houses, the basements are used as private dwellings by members of the working classes, many of
whom live and sleep therein.
An exhaustive survey of these basement dwellings was made during 1932 by the officers of
the public health department.
The basement front rooms included in the survey numbered 5,619 ; 5,253 of these are underground
rooms, that is to say, the surface of the floor is three feet or more below the level of the
adjoining street. Two thousand three hundred of the underground front rooms are used for sleeping
purposes, and in many cases for day-time living purposes in addition ; 2,033 are used for day-time
living purposes only. When an underground room is not seven feet from floor to ceiling or does
not comply with regulations approved by the Minister of Health, the borough council can close it
for sleeping purposes under the powers granted by Section 18 of the Housing Act, 1925, and
Section 20 of the Housing Act, 1930. Many of these rooms have been closed, and the only result
is that the families live in the basement front rooms in the day-time and sleep in the basement
back rooms. Many of these underground front rooms which are not fit for sleeping purposes are
also not fit for day-time living purposes ; further, it is probably true that no public health advantage
is gained by making people sleep in the back rooms and live in the front rooms. Indeed, such a change
is possibly even more harmful to health.
The survey covered 5,244 basement back rooms. In most of these, the floor is at or near the
level of the back yard, with the result that only 1,186 are technically underground. Thus the
existing underground room legislation referred to above does not apply to 4,058 basement back
rooms. Section 20 of the Housing Act, 1930, enables the borough council to close a single room,
whether it is a basement room or not, if it is unfit for human habitation, provided that it is let as
a separate tenement. The vast majority of the basement back rooms in North Kensington are let
in conjunction with basement front rooms or rooms upstairs. Thus the council are not only
precluded from dealing with most of the basement back rooms by means of underground room
regulations, but they are also precluded from using Section 20 of the Housing Act, 1930.