View report page

126
less receipts in aid, are shown separately in the accounts. This course follows the
Council's past practice and is adopted in order to permit a clear view of the results
of managing completed dwellings. As the work on each estate proceeds, the proper
proportion of capital expenditure and debt charges is allocated to the account of
the dwellings available for letting, and, in the end, the total capital expenditure on
land and development is entirely absorbed in the cost of the dwellings.
The gross rental of the completed dwellings for 1922-23 is £184,856 17s. -d.,
as compared with £28,958 16s. -d. in 1921-22, an increase of £155,898 1s. -d.
The aggregate capital expenditure to 31st March, 1923, amounted to £8,842,808
13s. -d.; the net debt, including stock, etc., issue expenses, and after taking into
account the accumulated sinking fund was £10,016,284 14s. l0d.
Housing Schemes of metropolitan borough councils.—Under the Act of 1919,
the Council has to refund to the borough councils the losses arising in connection
with schemes carried out by them under the Act. The Council's Housing Accounts
will thus show the financial results of the assisted scheme for the County of London
as a whole. A sum of £240,479 1s. l0d. is included to cover the borough councils'
losses for the year 1922-23 as compared with £207,575 for the year 1921-22. The
amount is subject to revision, but the Council will not be affected by any variation
because its liability on the assisted scheme as a whole is limited to the amount of a
penny rate.
Local Bonds (for housing).—The issue of these Bonds ceased on 30th July, 1921.
the total amount raised to that date being £3,955,605. Deducting £106,373 6s. 2d. for
expenses of issue, the net amount raised was £3,849,231 13s. l0d. £3,847,868 of this
sum has been advanced on loan to the metropolitan borough councils for housing
purposes. No part of the proceeds has been used for the Council's own capital
purposes.
The Minister of Health has agreed to the expenses of issue being spread over
a period of 5 years, and charged to the assisted scheme. Provision has been made
accordingly. The rate of interest charged on the loans to the borough councils
is the same as that payable by the Council on the face value of the Bonds, viz., 6
per cent., and the instalments in repayment of the expenses of issue and the annual
cost of management, etc., fall wholly on the assisted scheme account. In addition,
the assisted scheme bears the large (and growing) deficiency of interest due to the
investment of amounts repaid by borough councils not producing as much as the 6
per cent. payable on the Bonds.
Housing Estates—Memorandum by the Valuer (Mr. Frank Hunt).
Extension of
Council's
Housing
Activities.
As has been the case in each year since the war the volume of work connected
with the administration of the Council's dwellings has during 1922-23 shown a
continuous increase. This is the natural consequence of the extension of the Council's
housing activities caused by the provisions of the Housing Town Planning, etc.,
Act, 1919.
At the end of March, 1922, 2,082 dwellings had been erected under the provisions
of the Act, and during the year ended 31st March, 1923, 5,134 additional dwellings
were provided, making a total of 7,216 post-war dwellings. Schemes under which
nearly 2,000 additional dwellings will be provided at Becontree and Roehampton
were also in progress. The pre-war dwellings numbered 9,985, so that the actual
number of dwellings in charge at the end of the year was 17,201, or nearly double
the number before the war.
The work involved in the management of these dwellings entailing as it has
the handling of a great number of applications for tenancies, the investigation
of the circumstances of the applicants, the rationing of accommodation according
to the applicants' needs, and the numerous other questions inevitably arising in connection
with the management of new estates has of course been out of all proportion
to that associated with the management of an equal number of pre-war dwellings