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118
The total working-class population in this Pimlico district is estimated
to be about 32,000.
Restaurants, cafes, licensed houses, &c., number 49.
(2) Sufficiency of Supply of Houses.—The extent of the shortage of
houses available in the City at reasonable rents was considered by the
Medical Officer of Health in a report submitted to the Public Health and
Housing Committees in May last. It may be stated that approximately
700 dwellings are necessary to alleviate overcrowding and to replace
certain old worn-out dwellings on valuable sites.
It was stated in the report which is still under consideration that
while there were no slum areas in the City, certain houses, singly and in
groups, merited demolition by reason of the fact that they could not be
adequately reconditioned except by embarking upon an expenditure
exceeding the actual value of the houses. Attention was drawn to the
fact that schemes of development were being delayed or arrested by
reason of the great difficulty of providing suitable alternative accommodation
for the occupants of these houses.
As there are no suitable vacant sites in Westminster where workingclass
houses can be erected, it is a difficult and necessarily slow process
to meet the demands for new houses.
It will be remembered that the City Council has on its two housing
areas now being developed 824 flats in course of construction. On the
Grosvenor housing area there will be a surplus of flats after all those on
the improvement area have been accommodated. Many of the most
urgent cases referred to in this report have already been rehoused at
Ebury Bridge.
It is inevitable that as time goes on and further developments take
place in the City, working-class dwellings will become more scarce and
difficult to obtain. A policy, therefore, which provides for the future
should warrant careful consideration. If dwellings are to be provided in
Westminster, they must necessarily take the form of lofty industrial
tenements.
(3) Overcrowding.—During the five years to the end of 1930, a
total of 1,118 cases of overcrowding of varying intensity came to the
knowledge of the officers of the Public Health Department. While 265
of these were illegal according to the standard in the by-laws as to houses
let in tenements, the remainder were not overcrowded in the legal sense,
but were socially so inasmuch as they consisted of families occupying one
or two rooms only.