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been carried out at very considerable cost to such owners; indeed,
it is reported that the houses in Ethelm Street alone have cost the
owners (the Ecclesiastical Commissioners) the sum of £3 000.
After all this work has been carried out (with the consequent
expense), under the terms of, and as the result of, the provisional
schedules, served by the Borough Council under the Housing, Town
Planning, etc., Act, 1919 (Section 28), it is suggested, by the London
County Council, that the same houses should now be made the
subject of an official representation as an insanitary area, under the
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, Part I (Section 4), with a
view to such area being cleared, and a new re-construction (Improvement)
Scheme carried out. In this connection, the representative of the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, at the time that the work was being
carried out, under the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1919 (Section
28), gave this Council's Housing Inspectors to understand, very definitely,
that such work was only to be regarded as temporary. The
permanent re-construction Scheme, which had already been approved
in part by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the plans of which
had already been prepared, and even one block of six tenements
erected on a vacant site at the corner of Ethelm Street and Cornwall
Road, was to be carried out by the Commissioners themselves, as
a private enterprise scheme, as soon as practicable, i.e., as soon
as the houses in Ethelm Street could be cleared of the tenants. The
displaced tenants were to be re-housed in neighbouring houses, or other
houses, belonging to the Commissioners-Nos. 1 to 16, Ethelm Street
to be dealt with first as a beginning, and the rest of the houses in
Ethelm Street afterwards (a few at a time). The question of the
re housing of the tenants who would be displaced has been the
difficulty with the Commissioners, and this difficulty will be much
increased if the London County Council deals with the area, as a
whole, as suggested; in fact, the arranging for the re-housing of the
tenants (before actual displacement) will prove to be a stupendous task.
It cannot be suggested that the London County Council will
succeed in accomplishing a wholesale displacement of tenants by Provisional
Order, where the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are failing to
accomplish a comparatively piecemeal displacement. It would have
been better to have left Ethelm Street to the private enterprise of the
Commissioners.