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The Council has already done a great deal towards redeveloping
areas for modern housing and with the help and co-operation of the
London County Council a high proportion of the slum clearance programme
for London has been allocated to Bethnal Green. In addition,
the London County Council has a large housing programme for the
Dorough, but in order to attain a good standard it would be necessary
to demolish and re-build approximately three quarters of all the houses
in the borough and the process of redevelopment will have to be
spread over many years. The number of factories, workshops and
commercial premises which are necessarily displaced by redevelopment
add considerably to the difficulties and cost.
In spite of the basically bad environment in Bethnal Green as
compared with most other urban areas, the health of the population as
measured by death rates and the incidence of notifiable disease is
satisfactory, but if it were possible to obtain a measure of the
degree of good health or even an accurate measure of the amount of
non-fatal illness it is likely that the picture would be less comforting.
The infant mortality rate is somewhat higher than that for the
previous year, but with a small population the rate varies considerably
and is unreliable as an indication of the degree of child care.
Out of approximately 11,000 children between the ages of one and
fifteen years there were only 8 deaths but of these, three deaths
were due to accidents and the prevention of accidents both on the
road and in the home is a matter which deserves as much attention as
the other preventive services.
At the other end of the scale the welfare of old people has
attracted increasing attention. Whilst many children still do their
utmost to provide for the happiness and well-being of their aged
parents the provision of increasing community services appears, in a
minority of cases, to have encouraged people to shed their responsibilities.
Many old people in Bethnal Green are living in unsatisfactory
circumstances and some were found to be unable to care properly
for themselves and were not receiving adequate care from others. In a
number of cases it was possible to persuade the old person to enter an
institution or hospital and it was not necessary to resort to legal
proceedings for this purpose. The London County Council, through the
Home Help Service, has done an immense amount of good in providing the
necessary care and attention for many of the old people and the
voluntary services have done a great deal to provide for those needs
which cannot adequately be met by legislation. Difficulties did occur
during the year on account of the shortage of accommodation both in