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Of the total, 291 families have been allocated houses on the L.C.C.
Estates, while 467 were housed in the City Council's dwellings. Some
cases of overcrowding were otherwise abated by private arrangements.
There are still about 500 cases of overcrowding existing. This total is
obviously not constant and varies from month to month as cases are
relieved and others are discovered.
Overcrowding is most prevalent in Pimlico and the adjoining district
of St. John (Millbank), and is due partly to the inability of those affected
to pay the high rents demanded when vacancies occur and to the undoubted
shortage of working-class accommodation in Westminster, which
is aggravated by the influx of people from outside the City who are willing
to pay the high rents demanded to be near their work. Other factors
which contribute to overcrowding are the demolition of working-class
houses and those families who earn good wages but prefer to spend money
on indulgences rather than the improvement of their housing conditions.
The circumstances of cases of overcrowding are, therefore, somewhat
varied, and while the Department strives hard to help those who
cannot help themselves, it cannot shoulder the responsibility of those
who by intent or by ignorance fail to remedy conditions well within
their power to alter.
(4) Fitness of Houses- (a) The repair and reconditioning of old
working-class dwellings is constantly in progress and its proper supervision
demands much of the time of the sanitary inspectors. The majority
of owners are alive to the advantages of keeping their properties in good
repair, and a great deal of work is done voluntarily. Defects may be
discovered in the course of routine house-to-house inspections or by
visiting on complaint. Thus, of the 1,059 defective houses reported,
332 were the subject of complaint. In no case was any failure experienced
in obtaining remedy for these conditions by administering the
nuisance sections of the Public Health Act. Of the 887 intimation
notices, only 58 were ineffective, thus requiring the service of statutory
notices by the sanitary authority. Only in 5 instances had recourse
to be taken to court proceedings to enforce those statutory notices.
This is sufficient evidence to prove the simplicity and effectiveness of the
procedure under the Public Health Act.
Section 3 of the Housing Act, as the similar section in the 1919 Act,
had remained practically a dead letter in Westminster because no instance
had arisen which could not be dealt with effectively by the Public Health
Act. In 1930, however, and in the previous year, a few cases arose in
which the fate of generally dilapidated houses was acutely precipitated