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119
must be faced sooner or later; and until such a course of
action is taken by Public Bodies, it is not advisable to
make a representation under Part I. (i.e., a representation
condemning a large insanitary area containing many houses,
and displacing very many people).
Much good, however, can be done under Part II., which
deals with individual houses unfit for human habitation, and
small, unhealthy areas and obstructive buildings, which latter
means any building or buildings which, although not in
themselves unfit for habitation, by their respective positions
stop ventilation, or make other buildings insanitary, or
prevent proper measures from being carried into effect for
remedying nuisances. Again, in Lambeth (as elsewhere),
house accommodation (good or bad) for the poorer classes
is scarce, so that it behoves the Vestry to proceed cautiously
as to closing of houses in large areas, and only to deal
with small areas at a time.
Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act,
gives the Vestry powers of acquiring or appropriating
land for the purpose of erecting suitable lodging houses
for the working classes, converting buildings into lodging
houses, with powers to fit up and furnish the same, and
make bye-laws for their management and charges for
their tenancies.
Whilst it has been thought necessary to take action under
the Housing of the Working Classes Act in respect of 96
houses, it must be remembered that under the Public Health
(London) Act much more work has been done in the way
of rendering houses habitable, and so dispensing with the
necessity for taking action under the more stringent Act,
and reference to the Table on page 79 must be made
before the whole of the work that has been accomplished
during the past year in the way of the better