View report page

118
to local authorities in which the following statement occurs. "The
outstanding need at the present time is for the building of houses which
can be let at rents within the means of the poorer members of the working
classes the Departmental Committee on the Rent Restrictions
Acts, whose terms of reference led necessarily to a general review of
housing conditions, show clearly in their report that in spite of the
immense volume and cost of house building since the War, the needs of
the poorer workers are not, in fact, being adequately met. The evidence
available in the reports of Medical Officers of Health and of the Minister's
Officers lead to the same conclusion."
The new housing scheme on the St. John's College site, one block
of which is now nearing completion, will be a useful addition toward
the housing shortage in Battersea. The scheme, when completed, will
provide for the erection of three hundred tenements, or more than half
the total number of working class dwellings provided since the War.
It is probable, therefore, that so far, the Council will be compelled
to confine their activities mainly to dealing with clearance and improvement
schemes and to the reconditioning or demolition of unfit houses.
The powers and simplified procedure given them under the new Housing
Act will no doubt encourage them to proceed gradually and systematically
with the first mentioned. A list of the more urgent areas is set out in
he results of the survey. It is, however, the more immediately practicable
activities—viz., the repair or reconditioning and where necessary
the demolition of unfit houses, houses let in lodgings and underground
rooms—that, as in recent years, no doubt the Housing Committee
will consider the most important of the housing needs of the Borough
in the five yearly programme which it is the statutory duty of all local
authorities to submit to the Central Authority.
(Signed) G. Quin Lennane,
Medical Officer of Health.
March, 1932.