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41
ellation of Certificates
Applications by landlords to Council for cancellation
of certificates 2
Objections by tenants to cancellation of certificates
upheld Nil
Certificates cancelled 2
Houses in Multiple Occupation (including hostels)
Under Section 90 of the Housing Act, 1957 the Council may
serve a notice on the occupier, or the person having the control and
management of a house or part of a house, where excessive numbers of
persons are accommodated, specifying in relation to any room on the
premises the maximum number of persons by whom it is suitable to be
occupied for sleeping purposes at any one time, or, if appropriate,
that the room is unsuitable to be occupied for sleeping purposes.
It will be an offence after the notice has become operative to cause
or allow any rooms to be occupied otherwise than in accordance with
the notice, or to cause or permit the accommodation to be so occupied
that it is not possible to avoid persons of opposite sexes over the
age of 12 years ( excluding persons living together as husband and
wife) occupying sleeping accommodation in the same room.
In the last few years the Council have given very serious
consideration to the question of improving tenement houses.
The premises affected vary considerably and render
impracticable the provision of a single rigid code of requirements
applicable to all cases. However, the Council have adopted certain
minimum standards of the essential services and amenities which they
will consider as satisfactory in appropriate cases.
Many attempts have been made to obtain improvements by
exercising the Council's powers under the Public Health (London) Act,
1936. These attempts, however, have been frequently frustrated,
partly because of the difficulty of ascertaining exactly who was the
legal owner at any particular time. A further difficulty was the
reluctance of some tenants to attend court.
Under Section 36 of the Housing Act, 1957, powers were
given to the Council to replace the Bye-laws for houses let in
lodgings which imposed obligations on landlords and tenants to
effect the proper maintenance of communal parts of tenement houses.
The new powers proved to be an inadequate substitute for the Byelaws
.
One of the factors mainly accounting for the squalid
appearance of these houses was the condition of the entrance halls,
the communal staircases and kitchens. The artificial lighting of
the halls and staircases was adequate, but the decorations were old
and drab. These parts of the houses were seldom swept, with the
result that there was an accumulation of litter. Many of the
communal kitchens presented an even worse appearance, food refuse
having been left about, and little attempt seemed to have been made
to clean stoves, sinks or floors. It was doubtful whether the
bathrooms were much used, probably owing to lack of hot water, and
the condition of many of the water closets indicated lack of normal
cleansing.
The method of letting produced a great volume of refuse
and the number of bins needed could not be housed in the small front
areas and cellars. As a result some were kept in the flats and, on
collection day, all were brought down and stacked on the front
entrance steps. Some refuse was thrown out of rear windows into
the areas, where it choked the drains.