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96
other was living in very overcrowded conditions in an adjoining district.
These were the two exceptions, eminently justified by the special circumstances,
which have given rise to those exaggerated rumours to which
reference has been made. The Council, in its rehousing operations, took
the wise course in a number of instances of allocating a quota of the new
flats to certain of its tenants in the older dwellings at Regency Street.
Those were tenants who required more rooms for their growing families
and who had proved themselves suitable and trustworthy. Their transference
to Ebury Bridge thus rendered vacant a number of flats at
Regency Street dwellings which were then available for new applicants.
Allocation of Flats.
By reason, then, of the additional accommodation provided by the
Council in 1930, and of vacancies occurring in the Council's dwellings
during the year, there have been relieved.:—
(1) 87 cases of overcrowding (as legally understood).
(2) 26 cases of social overcrowding (lack of proper separation
of sexes, or more than two persons to a room).
(3) 11 cases of families living illegally in underground rooms.
(4) 13 cases from other insanitary conditions.
(5) 26 cases, not all overcrowded, were rehoused by the L.C.C.
When the Ebury Bridge Estate is finally complete it is anticipated
that probably 130 more cases of overcrowding, &c., will be relieved.
Following the usual procedure, warning letters have been addressed
to the owners as to their obligations in reletting premises from which
these families have been rehoused, so that a recurrence of these unsatisfactory
conditions may be avoided. These premises were kept under
special observation and it is satisfactory to report that due heed has been
paid to these warnings. It may, however, be said that owners are usually
anxious to avoid the recurrence of overcrowding. In most of the
cases where previously overcrowded rooms have been relet, they have
been taken either by families without children or by other tenants of
the same premises, who were in need of increased accommodation.
(ii) Contrasts created by the New Flats.
In last year's report, attention was drawn to the very great advantages
which the tenants of flats in the Council's new dwellings possess as compared
with their less fortunate fellow citizens remaining in tenement
houses. The latter, in the rents they pay which include rates,
are contributing to the wonderful amenities which those rehoused
in the Council's dwellings enjoy. The basement dweller, formerly