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53
responsibility for the large areas, if the Borough Council would
declare orders in connection with the remaining half of the small
areas. The Borough Council, however, in view of their commitments
in respect of the Hemans Street area, of which one-half only has
been taken in hand, and in view of the considerable increase of
work which would fall upon the Medical Officer of Health, who has
no whole-time assistant, and the Public Health Department,
decided to ask the County Council to shoulder the responsibility
of the declaration of orders upon all the small areas as well as the
larger ones. The County Council have reluctantly consented to this
course provisionally, but the financial settlements have not yet
been arranged. The Hemans Street Area was represented in September,
1931, the Ministry Inquiry being held in November, 1933.
The clearance order was confirmed in 1934, with the exception of
8 houses, for which the owner gave an undertaking to carry out the
repairs required under section 17, Housing Act, 1930.
The premises are three-floored terrace houses in a low-lying area
approximately six feet below Trinity High Water Mark. The site
at one time seems to have been the marshy foreshore on the bank
of the Thames exposed to floods at high tide. The subsoil has the
appearance and nature of river mud. Included in the notices of
repairs, therefore, were the concreting of the sites and the provision
of horizontal damp courses. As the only water supply to each house
was on the ground floor, and the houses were occupied by more
than one family, a water supply with sink was required by the
notices to be provided on the top floor. The owner appealed to the
County Court on the four requirements, viz., concrete oversite,
horizontal damp course, water supply and sink, and his appeal
was upheld upon all four counts.
The owner was required, however, to provide a vertical damp
course to all ground floor internal walls where the match boarding
was absent or was in future removed when worn out or decayed,
or for any other reason. The effect of this requirement is that the
party walls will receive a vertical damp course on each side under
the stairs, inside cupboards, and in patches elsewhere where the
match-lining is absent to the height of the present match-lining.
The result will no doubt be observable later.
The effect of the judgment is, of course, not confined to these
houses only, as schedules of repairs served in connection with other
property are naturally limited by it.
The water supply and sink were regarded from a different aspect.
As the houses were sublet by the tenant, without the owner's
consent, to one other family in each case, they were not houses
let in separate tenements in so far as the County Council Bye-laws