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86
A very great deal of exact information as to housing conditions throughout
the City has been obtained and will be summarized in the Report for
1935. Up to the end of the year, 3,841 houses had been surveyed, the
Victoria ward being completed by that date. It will be appreciated that
as a detailed survey of this nature progressed a very great deal of work,
apart from recording conditions found, was created and might be mentioned
under the following heads:—
(1) Issue of notices for urgent repairs and defects.
(2) Following up of such notices to see whether the work was being
undertaken.
(3) Interviewing owners, their surveyors and builders relating to the
requirements of notices.
(4) Informal undertakings as to use of basement rooms structurally
illegal for separate occupation or for sleeping purposes.
(5) The issue of forms of such undertakings and making a special
record of undertakings received. Correspondence and discussions
with owners as to the responsibilities involved in such
undertakings.
(6) Preparation of official representations under Sections 1, 19 and 20
of the Housing Act of 1930.
Housing has come to occupy such a predominant place in the work of
the Public Health department and has grown to such an extent, that it
has formed for itself a specialized section within the department. The
overcrowding Bill, which is expected to become law in 1935, brings in a
fresh aspect of housing policy and will impose new duties on the City
Council. It is likely, therefore, that it will be necessary to retain in
some form or other the special staff organisation which was put in being for
the purpose of the survey.
For many years, owing to the prevailing housing shortage which became
acutely felt at the end of the war, unsatisfactory conditions such as
overcrowding and illegal underground occupation have continued. Legal
remedies existed, but were only resorted to in the most aggravated cases.
But it must be clearly emphasised that in spite of the known prevalence
of unsatisfactory and illegal occupation in the post-war era conditions were
very much worse in the decades before the war. For instance, take oneaspect
of the census figures of density of population. In Westminster the