View report page

141
The Public Health and Housing Committee considered the resolutions
of the Browning Hall Conference on Housing, and recommended the
Council that the resolutions of the Conference urging the establishment of
a Traffic Board for Greater London, with advisory powers in respect of
town planning, be approved.
Respecting this Browning Hall Conference on Housing, the General
Purposes Committee of the London County Council, at 4 p.m., on
Monday, July 1st, received a deputation on " Traffic Board," and as one
of the delegates at the Conference held at the Westminster Palace Hotel,
on April 24th, I attended the deputation.
The spokesmen of the deputation were the Bight Hon. Charles
Booth, Sir David Barbour, Chairman of the late Royal Commission on
London Traffic, Lord Ribblesdale, member of the said Commission, and
Sir J. Dickson-Poynder, member of the Commission. Letters were read
from the Archbishop of Westminster, the Bishop of London, and the
Bishop of Southwark. Mr. Booth stated that Lord Loreburn's views
were in accord with those of the deputation, and that Mr. Balfour had
written him a letter approving their ends.
Since the deputation was arranged, the President of the Board of Trade,
on Saturday, June 22nd, said:—
"Surprise has been expressed that the recommendations of the
Royal Commission on London Traffic had not been carried out. But
he told them that the Government were considering the matter, with a
view to action, and probably, immediate action. They were alive, not
merely to the importance, but to the urgency of the question.
Something would have to be done in order to co-ordinate all the
means of coping with the traffic difficulty of London."
Housing Refokm and Town Planning.
The following resolution was adopted at a Conference convened by
the Garden City Association in October last, viz.:—
"That this meeting of Municipal and Local Authorities and
Societies and others interested in Housing Reform and Town
Planning affirms its belief that the present planless and haphazard
extension of towns is detrimental to the best interests of the nation,
inasmuch as, by the creation of new slums and overcrowding, it
produces mental, moral and physical degeneration, and is also
burdensome to the ratepayers; it therefore calls upon all parties to
l