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This completes the St. Pancras Slum Clearance programme for the five year
period from 1955 to 1960 with the exception of the Curnock Street area.
Negotiations are proceeding at the present moment with the London County
Council concerning this and adjacent areas and I have thought it wise to defer
the representation of this area until the position has been clarified.
Rent Act 1957
This Act came into force on the 6th July, 1957.
Houses in London with a ratable value over £40 p.a. are decontrolled, and
the rents of houses remaining in control may be increased to a maximum of 2 1/3
times the gross annual value. Coupled with this there are provisions for dealing
with repairs. The standard of repair is such as will secure the remedying of
defects having due regard to the age, character and locality of the dwelling.
In the first instance, the tenant serves notice on his landlord specifying
those defects which he thinks should be remedied. The landlord has six weeks in
which to do the work or give an undertaking that the work will be done. If he
does neither of these things, the tenant may apply to the local authority for a
certificate of disrepair in relation to the defects specified in his notice to
the landlord.
When the local authority has decided whether any, or all, of these defects
justify the issue of a certificate of disrepair they must notify the landlord
and allow him three weeks to reconsider the giving of an undertaking. If the
landlord does not give such an undertaking, a certificate of disrepair is issued.
By the end of 1957, 114 applications for Certificates of Disrepair had been
received by the Public Health Department, and dealt with as follows:-
Undertakings received 49
Certificates of Disrepair issued 62
Defects remedied 2
No defects 1
23 applications for cancellation of Certificates of Disrepair were received.
13 were granted and 10 refused.
Smoke Control
At the meeting of the Public Health Committee held on the 4th June, 1957. I
represented as a smoke control area a section of Ward 7 bounded as follows:-
North Euston Road
South Torrington Place and Byng Place
East Gordon Square and Gordon Street
West Tottenham Court Road
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