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158
Housing Estates—Memorandum by the Valuer (Mr. Frank Hunt) for the
Year ending 31st March, 1925.
Expansion 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 1924-25 shown a
continuous increase. This is the natural consequence of the expansion of the Council's
housing activities caused by the housing legislation passed in recent years.
At the end of March, 1924, 8,046 dwellings had been erected under the provisions
of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1919, and during the year ended 31st
March, 1925, 845 additional dewellings were provided under the Act of 1919, 701
dwellings under the provisions of the Housing Act, 1923, 46 under the Housing
(Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, and 8 at Calverley House by the adaptation of a
disused Fire Station, making a total of 9,646 dwellings. The dwellings, almost all of
them erected before 1914, under Non-Assisted Schemes, numbered 9,985 ; so that
the actual number of dwellings in charge at the end of the year was 19,631, or nearly
double the number before the war.
New
dwellings
provided
during the
year.
Of the 1,600 additional dwellings provided during the year, 1,282 are situated
at Becontree, 72 on the White Hart Lane estate, 96 at Roehampton, 4 at Bellingham,
45 on the Downham Housing estate, 8 at Calverley House, 45 on the Tabard
Garden estate, and 48 on the Collingwood estate, which is being erected to rehouse
persons displaced by the Brady-street clearance scheme. The dwellings on the
Tabard Garden estate, the Collingwood estate and Calverley House are flats in
block dwellings, while all the others are cottages or cottage flats. On the basis of
two persons a room the Assisted Scheme dwellings, at the end of March, 1925, provided
Total accommodation
provided.
accommodation for 73,230 persons. The dwellings erected under Non-Assisted
Schemes (together with the tenements in Calverley House) comprise 6,551 flats in
block dwellings, 3,148 cottages and 294 cottage-flats, providing accommodation
for 57,047 persons on the basis of two persons a room. There are also the three
lodging-houses (Bruce House, Carrington House and Parker-street House), with
cubicles providing accommodation for 1,880 persons. The accommodation under
Non-Assisted Schemes thus provided was for 58,927. Adding to this figure the
accommodation in dwellings under Assisted Schemes, the Council's dwellings and
lodging houses provided, at the end of March, 1925, accommodation, calculated on
the basis of two persons a room, for 132,157 persons. Schemes under which over
12,000 houses at cottage estates and approximately 2,000 tenements in block
dwellings are projected at Becontree, Roehampton, Downham, White Hart-lane,
Castlenau, Hendon, East Hill, and in various slum areas to be cleared.
The work involved in the management of these dwellings, entailing as it does, in
addition to the normal work of management, such as the collection of rents and the
execution of repairs, 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 developed to
meet special needs, has been out of all proportion to that associated with the
management of an equal number of pre-war dwellings. A considerable amount of
work has been created owing to the inquiries which have had to be made into cases
notified by the Metropolitan Borough Councils, as well as other possible cases of
hardship by reason of the applicants living in insanitary or overcrowded conditions.
There has also been a great amount of preliminary work in connection with the
development of nroiected new estates.
Demand for
accommodation.
There has been no abatement of the great demand for accommodation on
the Council's estates. During 1924-25, 4,905 applicants were registered for different
types of dwellings, although it had been necessary, except in the case of Becontree,
to close the waiting lists, and a great number of persons had to be informed that
their applications could not be entertained. Moreover, as in previous years, a very