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construction in a scheme of demolition so swell the cost as to act as a deterrent
to the improvement of insanitary areas?
Would not economy be served if an authority had power to exchange an
inconvenient or unsuitable site or part of a site for land elsewhere, or to sell
and repurchase land elsewhere more suitable for rehousing, in the case of a
group of houses? At present this power appears to be restricted to an
individual house, after a closing order has been obtained from a magistrate,
and a demolition order made by a local authority. .
By lowering the rate of interest upon a loan for a scheme, and by diminishing
the amount of the periodical instalments in repayment of the principal by
extending the repayment over a longer period, the burden of cost of a scheme
will fall less heavily as an annual charge. The period of repayment that has
been advocated is at least sixty years for buildings, and one hundred years for
land. It has also been advocated that a Local Authority should be empowered
to hold the land and any buildings thereon in perpetuity.
As bearing upon the reconstruction of houses demolished, it must be pointep
out that every class of house that is demolished, or doomed to demolition, with
rare exception, can be inhabited by the working classes, and in most instances
is ultimately sub-divided and sub-let to the working classes. The consequence
of the demolition of dwelling houses is, in nearly all cases, to
diminish the working class dwelling accommodation in the neighbourhood.
Although the houses may not be at the moment occupied by the working
classes they are working class dwellings in posse, and will be such dwellings
in esse as soon as the pressure of population compels that inevitable result, and
if demolition is going on this result is not long delayed. Saint Pancras has
suffered very severely from non-recognition of this fact, as Parliament has
empowered the demolition of numbers of houses for which no dwelling accommodation
has been provided in substitution, the Standing Orders of the House
limiting the substitutional accommodation to be provided only for persons
earning less than 30s. per week, when more than 1-5 houses outside and
20 houses inside London are taken. The essential point is the existence of a
house capable of being used as a dwelling, or sub-let in a number of dwellings,
and when dwelling houses are demolished an equal amount of cubic dwelling
space should be provided in their stead, as near as possible to the site, the
distance from the site being necessarily greatest in the most built upon
districts.
Railuay Companies—On referring to § 2, Open Spaces, it will be seen that
249 acres of land in St. Pancras are occupied by the stations and depots of
great Railway Companies. While admitting that the public must be ministered
to by great [railways, it must also be urged that any local injury caused to
St. Pancras by great railways should be borne by London or rather by
England as a whole. How great this local injury is in the direction of
creating a dearth of housing accommodation may be guaged by allowing a
thousand square yards of land to a house and ten persons as occupants, then
249 acres would house at the very least 12,050 persons, and possibly twice
that number.