London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Strand (Westminster) 1898

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Strand District, London]

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THE STRAND DISTRICT, LONDON. 31
Holborn to the Strand. 3,030 persons will then be affected, and
probably about 1,250 of them will have house room found for
them in this district.
The Council are beginning to realise the necessity for providing
house room for poor persons as well as for artisans in regular work.
Buildings which they have erected in various parts of London
have been so expensively constructed that the class of persons who
originally lived on the site are unable to avail themselves of them on
account of the high rent which must be charged. This difficulty
is enhanced when the Council is obliged to make provision for
persons displaced, on the site. Were the Council able to construct
dwellings elsewhere, and at the same time give cheap
travelling facilities at all hours, improvements might be effected
at much less expense to the ratepayers, while the persons displaced
might be housed under conditions which, besides being healthier
than those under which they had been forced to exist, would at
the same time be preferable to the people themselves, than the
blotks of buildings to which the Council are necessarily restricted
when building in central districts *
The difficulty of providing housing accommodation for persons
of the poorer classes led your Board to pass a resolution expressing
the opinion that District Boards and Vestries should
have concurrent power witli the London County Council to acquire
sites and erect buildings under Part 3 of the " Housing of the
Working Classes Act."
Appointment of Arbitrator.—On the 20th December, the Home
Secretary made an order appointing Mr. Herbert Thomas Steward
as the arbitrator to determine the compensation payable by the
Council in respect of those claims which have not been settled by
agreement under the Clare Market Scheme.
Subjoined are the death rates for the area on the population,
as calculated to the middle of 1898. There were 102 deaths,
26 of them being due to consumption.
* It has been stated that the cost of land for housing persons displaced by the
proposed Holborn to the Strand street, will amount to £260 for each person,
while within 1£ miles, it would be £9.