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Some owners and agents expressed the view that the procedure
required to increase the rent is so complicated and hedged with
difficulties that they were not intending to use the provisions of
the Act for this purpose, but there is no doubt that the rents of a
considerable number of properties have been raised either strictly
in accordance with the Act or by a mutual arrangement between
landlord and tenant. The number of applications for certificates
of disrepair does not apparently form any basis for the estimation
of the number of cases in which the rent has been raised.
The Housing Repairs and Rents Act of 1954, does not appear to
have been very successful in Bethnal Green in helping to preserve
existing houses but this may be partly due to the fact that there
is within the Borough a much higher proportion of houses which
should be dealt with by demolition, rather than by preservation,
than is to be found in other areas.
Of the 17,000 inhabited dwellings at the end of 1954, some
2,500 were suitable for immediate demolition and there were many
more which, being already about 100 years old, have only a very
limited life.
The worst living conditions are to be found in block dwellings
and given a similar state of dilapidation and lack of amenity the
family in a house is far happier than a family in a tenement
dwelling or flat. It is consequently disappointing that during
1954 there were only proposals to build flats and no proposals for
houses. It is appreciated that in order to maintain the necessary
density to provide homes for Bethnal Green people in Bethnal Green,
and for financial reasons, it is necessary that the majority of
new dwellings must be flats, but it may well be that in the years
to come it will be found that the mental ill-health of the
inhabitants has increased. It is well known that a great deal of
mental ill-health Is due to unsatisfactory family circumstances and
the average flat is not the best place in which to bring up the
average family.
The work of the Public Health Department is summarised In the
report which follows and the Divisional Medical Officer, Dr. G.O.
Mitchell, has again kindly supplied me with some particulars of the
personal health services which are, of course, the responsibility
of the London County Council.