View report page

50
dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for habitation. In certain
of those instances it would no doubt benefit the owners voluntarily to
close such houses but it would not improve the plight of the tenants who,
in the present state of house shortage, would probably find themselves
homeless, and their last state would be worse than their first.
It will not be possible to take any drastic action against overcrowding
in Westminster until that ideal state has been reached when there will
be a surplus of houses in the Greater London area. It might be
supposed that by erecting 500 additional houses or flats in Westminster
a general easement of overcrowding would ensue and that a spacing
out would occur among the overcrowded families. But there exists a
constant tide of those who are eager to live in Westminster and who
are willing to pay decontrolled rents in order to achieve that object.
Thus there is an unabated demand for vacated rooms by people from
other districts, and unless the conditions in which those persons have
come to live are contrary to the regulations of the sanitary authority
or are otherwise unsatisfactory the sanitary authority are powerless.
Instances have been noted of individuals working in Poplar and
Lambeth coming to live in Westminster and experiencing no great
difficulty in finding accommodation. Having settled in Westminster
some of these incomers show sufficient enterprise to make application
for dwellings which the Council hope to erect for the benefit of
Westminster workers. Other instances might help to illustrate the
difficulties of the situation. A man with his family were living in
unsatisfactory conditions. He was in regular employment at Beacontree
on one of the L.C.C. housing estates. Nothing would induce him to
leave Westminster for a house on this estate, which was close to his place
of employment. In an overcrowded family the two male wage-earners
were employed on night work in a South London district. The inconvenience
of travelling was preferred to living in the neighbourhood of
employment. One concluding case may complete the illustrations. A
clerk in good employment, living in two rooms with his wife, desired to
get away from the squalid environment. He did not require to be at work
before 9 a.m., but they had no desire to have a self-contained house in an
L.C.C. estate, and would prefer to live even nearer the heart of the West
End. When one is confronted with such varying aspirations and conditions
of mind the task of distributing housing accommodation is not easy.
While it is very desirable that in a central district provision should be
made with a view to preference for the worker who requires to live near
his work, no such restriction can be placed on privately-owned houses,
and the law of supply and demand is permitted free operation. The case
of dwellings built by the local authority, however, raises this very