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52
While the average number of rooms per person in private families is
1.23 for the whole of the city, there are considerable variations in the
various wards as shown in Table III of the Census Report; thus in
Charing Cross each person has 2.49 rooms and in Grosvenor 1.87, Hamlet
1.80, and Knightsbridge 1.75, while in five wards each person has less
than one room, viz., Covent Garden, 0.74; St. John's, 0.88; Great
Marlborough and Regent, 0.89; St. Anne, 0.97. The remaining wards
are: Conduit, 1.66; St. Margaret's, 1.42 Pall Mall, 1.23; Strand,
1.08; and Victoria, 1.04.
An amount of legal overcrowding still exists, but it has been reduced
during the last year. Some of it was due to tenants taking in relatives
during the war, or who have been dis.housed in other boroughs, in other
cases it was due to the family growing up. The Peabody Trust, when they
opened their new buildings in Horseferry Road, were able to remedy
any overcrowding due to this last cause in their own buildings by rearranging
the tenants from their various groups of dwellings.
From the applications received at the City Hall, it is evident that there
are many who desire to live in Westminster on account of convenience
for their work, but on the other hand there is a considerable number of
persons now living in Westminster whose work is elsewhere and who
would be glad to move nearer to it if they could get dwellings. If an
interchange could be effected much of the difficulty would be solved.
The County Council has undertaken to provide within a period of
five years from January, 1920, not fewer than 29,000 new dwellings
exclusive of those to be erected on the cleared sites of insanitary areas,
and the Westminster City Council contributes some £32,000 a year towards
the cost of this and other building schemes in the Metropolis. Already
the County Council has provided 6,800 cottages and tenements in
block dwellings providing accommodation for 52,000 persons.
The Rents Restriction Acts, while of benefit in some directions, have
restricted the removal of insanitary worn.out houses and the reconstruction
of congested areas. One such scheme which would provide
work to the extent of about £150,000, in one of the most closely populated
parts of Westminster, is being held up chiefly on this account. So far as
the lower.rented houses are concerned, the repeal of these Acts would
probably not affect their rents. Any attempt on the part of landlords
to raise the weekly rent would be met by the inability of the tenant to
pay. Under present economic conditions many landlords are not getting
their full rents. The manager of one large estate informs me that they
have not put up their rents to the full extent allowed by the Acts, as in
their opinion the tenants could not pay the full amount; the result is
they have no arrears.