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small schemes have been under consideration during the
year, but mainly because of these difficulties had not
been proceeded with at the end of the year. The Teale
Street area, which the London County Council in 1928
decided to deal with, is still awaiting the actual
execution of the improvement scheme and the same
applies to the Digby Street area which was represented
to the Borough Council in 1929, after having formed
part of the Green Street area referred to the London
County Council in 1920.
It is perhaps characteristic of the snail's pace of
housing reform in the Borough that the Brady Street;
area, originally represented to the London County
Council by the Borough Medical Officer of Health in
1904 and re-represented in 1912, has not even yet
(1931) been completed. It is, of course, easy to say:
"Let us clear the slums and build decent houses" and
even to undertake to do so. Unfortunately, it is not
sufficiently realised how complicated the problem is in
a constricted area like Bethnal Green, where every
scheme is handicapped by the difficulty of finding
"suitable alternative accommodation." Local administrators
are helpless in the face of this difficulty.
As I and my predecessors have pointed out, the
population of Bethnal Green is too great to be housed
properly within the confines of the Borough according
to modern English standards, while a great deal of the
housing accommodation is worn out, congested and
otherwise very unsatisfactory. The solution of the
problem is bound up not only with the provision of
alternative accommodation elsewhere, but also with
complicated questions of wages, rentals, means of
transit, size of family, etc., etc. It is obvious, therefore,
that for any satisfactory attempt at solution a
comprehensive plan taking account of these matters
and covering London and Greater London is a sine
qua non. In the absence of such a plan only small
and unsatisfactory piecemeal reforms can be effected.