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heretofore, to build houses for the people requiring them, and
to let the same at rents which shall cover the actual annual cost,
and, so long as the present system of borrowing at interest
prevails, shall not include any payment to the redemption
sinking fund other than the proportion of it which would be
included in the ordinary rate.
And this Conference calls upon members of public bodies to
join in our demand for the before-mentioned improved financial
facilities, and it asks all candidates for Parliament to pledge
themselves to work and vote for the same, to the immediate end
that every family may be assured of proper house room.
2. That this Conference, while viewing with alarm the
agitation now being carried on by some land-owners in favour
of entirely abrogating or so modifying rural building bye-laws,
that cottages of match-lining and corrugated iron may be built,
also deplores the tendency in London and other places to
modify the urban bye-laws so as to permit the construction of
rooms containing an inadequate air-space; and bearing in mind
the case of the recent lire at Lambeth, in which a nurse was
burnt to death in a bedroom the area of which was under 39
feet, this Conference calls upon the London County Council
to introduce in its forthcoming Building Act Amendment Bill a
clause defining a room, such definition to state that the air space
of a room shall not be less than 1,200 cubic feet, and the
Conference also urges the extra-metropolitan Local Authorities
to embody the same provision in their building bye-laws.
This Conference further declares that, inasmuch as the
inquest on the body of Lena Pett, who died by the fire at
Lambeth before-mentioned, disclosed the fact that the size of