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The houses had been built about 70 years previously for single-family occupation ; but
practically every room was being used for both living and sleeping purposes and the dwellings were
fast deteriorating on account of the tremendous amount of wear and tear. Disrepair and sanitary
defects were common, but the main structures were, on the whole, fairly good. The streets are wide
and well planned and the area could not have been reasonably dealt with under clearance procedure.
An unsatisfactory feature was the bad condition of basement rooms which were unfit owing to lack
of air space and proper ventilation, darkness and dampness.
Power to deal with the area.
The Housing Act, 1930, provided a solution to the problem of dealing with areas such as this
where rapid deterioration was taking place, but where immediate demolition was not practicable ;
but the council were not entirely satisfied with the new powers and they induced the London county
council to promote special legislation to enable them to close completely the unsatisfactory basements.
These special powers were obtained in the London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1933.
The council concluded that they had three primary obligations to fulfil in connection with this
area, namely :—
(1) closure of unsatisfactory basements ;
(2) abatement of overcrowding ;
(3) reconditioning of the houses under Part II of the Housing Act, 1930.
There is a fourth duty, namely, the enforcement of improvement area by-laws to maintain a
proper standard of accommodation ; this duty will remain as long as the area is an improvement
area.
Closure of basements and abatement of overcrowding.
The first steps were to decrease the number of people in the area, eliminate overcrowding and
thus reduce the heavy wear and tear on the property. With this view in mind, the council acquired
the vacant Dalgarno Gardens building site of ten acres in North Kensington and made arrangements
with housing associations for the immediate erection of 323 flats for the working classes.
By December, 1934, the 778 basement rooms were closed and vacated ; early in 1935 the
rehousing of overcrowded families was completed. The result was that 1,802 persons were moved
out of the area, giving a reduction in population of 29 per cent.
In connection with this work, the council decided to prevent bug infestation of the new flats,
and the now well-known procedure of disinfesting by hydrocyanic acid gas the furniture of families
removed from old vermin infested houses to new flats was made a routine practice. During the
operations undertaken in vacating basements and abating overcrowding, the furniture of 399 families
was treated in this way. No fee was asked from these families.
Reconditioning of the houses.
In December, 1934, the council commenced the task of securing the repair and improvement of
the houses. Four houses were found not to be repairable at reasonable cost. Demolition orders
were made and the premises were vacated and demolished during 1935.
The remaining houses were brought up to a satisfactory standard of habitability by the
application of Section 17 of the Housing Act, 1930, and the special improvement area by-laws.
Every house was surveyed, a comprehensive schedule of repairs prepared in each case, and 373
notices were served requiring the execution of the necessary work.
The cost of reconditioning in individual houses varied from £30 to over £200 and it is estimated
that an average of /90 per house has been spent in this process.

In 16 cases, the council completed the requirements of the Section 17 notices in default of the
owners at an expense of £868 15s. 9d. Of this amount, £246 13s. 2d. has already been recovered and
the remainder, with interest, is being collected through the rents.
The improvement of the area as contemplated three years ago is now completed.
Prevention of nuisances in closed basement rooms.
In the improvement area by-laws, the council have powers to prevent nuisances arising in
closed basement rooms and owners have been required to wire or board up the windows, remove
all rubbish and litter, and to remove dirty or verminous wall paper and woodwork. Routine
inspections of the basements are carried out once every two months and it is interesting to report
that only on rare occasions are unsatisfactory conditions found.