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HOUSING AND SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES
Certain aspects of the work required to be carried out by
public health inspectors in this Borough have changed considerably
during the last few years. Before the war most of the inspectors'
efforts were concentrated on securing the abatement of sanitary
nuisances in tenanted houses and for this purpose the owners, from
time to time, were required to carry out structural repairs to roofs
and floors and wall and ceiling linings. Additionally the owner was
normally considered to be responsible for the internal decorative
condition of the house. Generally speaking houses were occupied as
single dwellings by one family except in one or two small areas of
older houses in the Borough.
With the advent of the Rent Act the position with regard to
repair and internal and external decoration of the tenanted dwelling
house has been modified. In order to obtain the maximum permitted
rent the owner was generally prepared to carry out necessary repairs
to make the premises weatherproof and reasonably comfortable for
occupation. The occupiers were themselves, in most cases, prepared
to carry out the necessary internal decorative repair and the number
of applications to the Council for action under the Public Health Act,
has, since the Rent Act, progressively declined. Where an owner is
not prepared to meet the reasonable requests for maintenance by the
occupier, procedure is provided by the Rent Act which has been used
in a number of cases and at the same time the information available
to the Department suggests that the availability of this procedure to
the occupier, has persuaded the owner to carry out work without
recourse by the occupier, to the official procedure. The effect of
these conditions has been an appreciable improvement in the general
standard of repair and external and internal decoration of the majority
of the tenanted houses in the Borough.
Since the Rent Act came into force there appears to have been
a noticeable increase in the number of owner-occupied dwellings in
the Borough and this naturally has led to a further improvement in the
condition of many of these houses.
A long standing problem which the department is still called
upon to solve, consists of the evacuation and demolition of houses
which are old, dilapidated and beyond repair at anything approaching
reasonable cost. Most of these houses are situated in groups but
there are from time to time single houses, detached, semi-detached
and terraced which reach a stage of dilapidation where they are no
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