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63 [1931
Rothery Street, Nos. 2 to 13.—Only Nos. 8 and 10 are in a fair state of
repair, the others are very old and dilapidated.
Rothery Place.—The whole of these houses are very old and most are
dilapidated.
Church Grove.—The whole of these houses are in a dilapidated and worn
condition, two of the houses being back to back with stables.
G. CLARK TROTTER, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health.
4th June, 1931.
The Joint Meeting of the Housing and Public Health Committees on the 15th
June, 1931, viewed the undermentioned premises :—
(a) 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19, Dorset Street.
(b) Rothery Street, Rothery Place, Church Lane and Church Grove.
(c) Vittoria Street, Henry Place, Payne Street, Vittoria Place, Half Moon
Crescent, and Maygood Street.
(d) North Avenue and Northdown Street,
and on the 17th June, 1931, viewed the following property :—
(a) 8 to 40 and 50 to 56a, Hurlock Street.
(b) Victoria Place, Instow Place, Emily Place and Queensland Road.
(c) 13, 15, 17 and 19, St. Clement Street.
(d) 18 and 32, Cornelia Street and 33, Barnsbury Grove.
Representations were made by the Medical Officer of Health on the 5th April,
1929, under the Housing Act of 1925 in reference to a portion of the South side of
Georges Road and an area adjacent thereto. (See Annual Report, 1929). Before
the L.C.C. took definite action, however, the Housing Act of 1930 became law.
It should be noted that the Medical Officer of Islington made the representation
under the 1925 Act, and the technical difficulties afterwards encountered could
have been avoided if action had been taken at the time.
On the 18th June information was received from the London County Council
in reference to the Hope Street Area that the Council, owing to a decision of the
Ministry of Health, had been obliged to defer consideration of the question of
dealing with the area as a clearance area under the Housing Act of 1930 until a
way had been found of surmounting the legal difficulty which had arisen by the
decision that a clearance of isolated blocks of insanitary houses, physically
separated by houses or other buildings which are not insanitary cannot be regarded
as one clearance area, but that although near to one another, they constitute
several clearance areas, the test being whether the insanitary property can be
encircled by a continuous and unbroken line.
UNDERGROUND ROOMS AND BASEMENTS.
On the 16th October the Council issued a Closing Order in respect of an
underground room at No. 15, Douglas Road, Canonbury, occupied for the purpose
of a sleeping place contrary to the provisions of Section 18 of the Housing Act,
1925, and Section 20 of the Housing Act, 1930. Notice as required by Section 19
of the Housing Act, 1930, had been served on the person who let the room, the
lesses of the house, and the freeholder.
Where applications were received for a recommendation for other accommodation
on account of bad housing conditions (overcrowding, etc.), and the room or
rooms were found to come within the legal category of “Underground Rooms,”