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3.—All registered tenement houses, and certain other dwellings which require
frequent inspection (known as " inscribed dwellings") are visited
periodically (six monthly, where possible), and inspected.
There were at the end of 1914, 2,364 houses on the tenement house
register (i.e., the register of " houses let in lodgings, or occupi ed by
members of more than one family "). These are sub-let houses which are
of such a nature as to make frequent inspection desirable. They are
nearly all let unfurnished. Four such houses were added to the register
during 1914. The number of ' inscribed dwellings" at the end of the
year was 207.
338 routine inspections and 280 consequent re-inspections of these
houses were made during 1914, in addition to those made under the
Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909 (see below). Weekly inspections
were also made of the yards of mews and stables. 4429 inspections
of these and 207 consequent re-inspections were made in the year.
4.—During 1914 the routine inspection of houses prescribed by Sec. 17 (1)
of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, has been continued.
This sub-section provides that “ it shall be the duty of every local authority
to cause to be made from time to time inspection of their district
with a view to ascertaining whether any dwelling-house therein is in a
state so dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human
habitation." It also enacts that in this connection regulations made by
the Local Government Board must be complied with.
In accordance with the regulations a list of streets was prepared by the
late Medical Officer of Health, the houses in which, in his opinion,
ought to be inspected at once. This consisted of those streets, the
majority of the houses in which were already subject to periodical
inspection as registered tenement houses or "inscribed dwellings." The
number of houses included in these streets was 3824.
The inspections under the regulations were begun on 1st January, 1913,
and in every instance a case paper has been filled up and filed. A number
of streets which are not included in the above-mentioned list have also been
inspected. During 1913, 1545 houses were inspected for the first time
under the Act, and 26 of the houses received a second routine inspection
later in the year. In 1914 there have been made 1582 further first
inspections, and 789 houses have had a subsequent routine inspection.
Since 1st January, 1913, therefore, 3127 of the 25,000 houses in the
Borough have been inspected under the Act, and 815 of these have
received subsequent routine inspections. It is not to be forgotten that
most of these inspections involved re-inspections after the service of
intimation notices.
The details of this work are set out in the following table :—