View report page

102
The Report was considered by the Sub-Committee and the following opinion was reported
to the parent Committee :—
It is important for the Committee to realise that there is no Government financial
assistance available for the conversion of empty houses, and if any scheme of this sort was
contemplated, the loss sustained would fall entirely on the rates. For this reason, and in
view of the fact that the St. Pancras House Improvement Society, who have raised funds
for the purpose, are carrying out the conversion of derelict houses into flats for the accommodation
of the working classes, we are not prepared to recommend that any action should
be taken at the present time.
WORK OF THE ESTATES COMMITTEE.
The following summary of the principal matters dealt with by the Estates Committee
during the past year has been prepared by Mr. A. D. Corrick, Clerk to the Committee, who
succeeded Mr. A. Powell Coke in that position in October, in 1925, upon Mr. Coke's
promotion to the office of Deputy Town Clerk.
The Estates Committee, whose Chairman is Councillor W. C. Wood, control nearly
five hundred dwellings in different parts of the Borough. A great deal of the time of the
Committee is taken up with questions concerning the administration of these properties,
which are situate at (a) The Brookfield Estate, Highgate ; (b) Una House, Prince of Wales
Road ; (c) Goldington Buildings, Great College Street; (d) Flaxman Terrace, Euston Road ;
and (e) Prospect Terrace, Gray's Inn Road. In practice it is found that very few vacancies
occur in the Council's dwellings, and for these there is a long waiting list of admittedly
hard cases of bad housing accommodation.
Material assistance has been given by the London County Council in relieving eases of
overcrowding in St. Pancras. They have accommodated many families in their various
estates in other parts of London, especially in the new estates at Becontree in Essex, and
Downham, near Catford. Headway is being made with the development of the County
Council's new Watling Estate at Hendon, which will further relieve the housing situation.
Somers Town Housing.
Wolcot Street Area.—The new housing scheme initiated by the Borough Council for
the improvement of the unhealthy conditions existing in this area is making progress. Terms
for the purchase of the interests in the land have been settled, and tenders for the erection
of seventy working-class flats are now before the Council. The Minister of Health would not
make any grant towards the annual loss on the scheme, and in order that this greatly needed
improvement should be no longer delayed, the Council decided to proceed and to bear the
whole loss, estimated at £2,000 per annum
Staff.
The administrative work in connection with the Estates Committee (Chairman:
Councillor W. C. Wood, Deputy-Chairman : Councillor R. J. Smerdon) is carried out by
Mr. A. D. Corrick, the Clerk to the Committee, who is assisted by Mr. G. N. Cove and the
Housing Superintendent, Mr. L. Barnard. The resident caretakers at the several blocks
of buildings are as follow:—Prospect Terrace, Mr. H. A. Reid; Brookfield Estate,
Mr. H. J. Ambrose; Flaxman Terrace, Mr. C. Hanson; Una House, Mr, J, F. Clegg;
Goldington Buildings, Mr. G. S. Tunbridge.