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56
Ebury Bridge Schcme.
The financial provisions, lay-out and general design of another new
housing scheme have been approved by the Council and the work is now
proceeding. This is the Ebury Bridge Housing Scheme, on land shortly
to be designated surplus owing to the policy of the Council pursued in
recent years of centralizing the work of certain departments. In brief,
as it affects this area the policy will include the filling in of part of the
Grosvenor canal, the demolition of certain old workshops and stores,
making a clearance of approximately two acres. The dangerous corner
of Ebury Bridge Road, where the Tuberculosis Dispensary and Maternity
and Child Welfare Centre now stand will be cut off, thus bringing this
road into direct line with Buckingham Palace Road. These two institutions
will be rebuilt in more up-to-date and commodious buildings, and
will be more or less homogeneous with the new housing scheme. A
perspective view of the proposed scheme and plans of the Maternity
and Child Welfare Centre and Tuberculosis Dispensary are shown on
pages x, xi and xii of the appendix to this report. It will be noted
that in addition to eight blocks of flats there will be two floors of flats
over the Dispensary and Welfare Centre. It is the intention to house
in them certain officers of the Council who are required to live near
their work.
When these two schemes are completed the Council will have provided
a total of approximately 1,000 dwellings since the war. The working class
accommodation owned by the Council previous to the war was 396. In
addition there are throughout the City no fewer than 72 blocks of industrial
dwellings containing 6,209 separate flats. It has already been pointed out
that there is a larger number of industrial dwellings in Westminster than
in any other district of London. In other words suitable working-class
accommodation exists in higher proportion than in the other Metropolitan
Boroughs. If the comparative figures of resident and day population
are borne in mind the difficulty of providing housing for all who work
in Westminster will become apparent:—138,000 residents and almost
400,000 who come to Westminster daily to work. In order to make
room for houses for the majority of Westminster workers it would
be necessary probably to demolish some of the shops and offices in
which they work, which is a reductio ad absurdum., The proposal might
likewise be put forward that those who work in the City of London should
be housed there. It would again be a question of housing half a million
persons where only 13,000 are now dwelling. This could only be accomplished
by erecting industrial dwellings of enormous height on the cleared
sites of say banks, insurance offices and warehouses.