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208
Having regard to the large number of applications from persons residing in the
county of London, it has been decided that, except in very special cases, all applications
from persons residing outside the county shall be held in abeyance.
The difficulty of obtaining suitable accommodation is most acute in the cases
of persons about to be married, newly married couples, and persons with families
so small as to render them ineligible for accommodation in dwellings other than those
of the smallest types.
Method of
allotting.
Before the war it was the general practice of the Council, upon the receipt of
satisfactory references, to accept tenants in the order in which their applications
were received. Preference was only given (i.) to persons displaced through
the acquisition by the Council of property for clearance or improvement schemes
or other public purposes, and (ii.) to persons already residing in the county of London.
These preferences still hold good. Since the war the Council has, from time to
time, given temporarily further preferences, other circumstances being equal, to
persons who gave up their homes in order to join H.M. Forces or to undertake work of
national importance, to firemen required to vacate quarters at fire-stations and to
certain other small classes of people.
In order to make the full use of all available accommodation the Council has
found it necessary to adopt the following general principles: (i.) Applicants are
to be allotted dwellings not larger than are deemed to be sufficient to meet the
reasonable needs of their families, taking into consideration the sex and ages
of the children and the bedroom accommodation required; (ii.) no person residing
alone is to be accepted as a tenant; and (iii) not more than two rooms are
to be allotted to a married couple without children or two single women living
together. In some cases the circumstances of the applicants, owing to ill-health,
overcrowding, the insanitary state of their homes or to other conditions have been
such that it has been decided to grant special preference in exceptionally hard cases
of this kind.
In some cases it has been necessary during the year to decline to entertain
applications on the ground that the family income of the applicants was inadequate
to enable them to pay the rents, although these are less than remunerative and involve
heavy expenditure out of public funds. On the other hand some applications
have been declined as it was considered that the financial position of the applicants
did not justify their being accepted as tenants of State Assisted accommodation.
Under the tenancy agreements tenants are not allowed to take lodgers or to sublet.
Rehousing.
Owing to war conditions, the Council did not during the years 1915-20 carry
out any displacements consequent upon street improvement, clearance or education
schemes. During the years 1920-25, however, the Council rehoused 2,184 persons.
During 1925-26, 1,346 persons were rehoused, who had been displaced mainly by
the following schemes:—Ware-street Scheme, Shoreditch; Hickman's Folly Scheme,
Bermondsey; Tabard-street Scheme, Southwark; Bell-lane Scheme, Shoreditch;
Prusom-street Scheme, Stepney; Brady-street Scheme, Bethnal Green; Lena
Gardens Scheme, Hammersmith and Salisbury-street Scheme, Bermondsey. Of
these 1,346 persons 209 were accommodated on the East Hill Estate, 204 on the
Downham Estate, 180 on the Whitmore Estate, 117 on the Boundary-street Estate
and the remainder on other estates. The total number of persons rehoused up
to 31st March, 1926, was 5,286.
Transfers.
During the year 1,076 tenants were transferred to other tenements on the
Council's estates. These transfers are sometimes to a different estate, owing to
the tenant having changed his place of work, and sometimes to a larger or smaller
tenement owing to an increase or decrease in the tenant's family. Whenever
possible tenants living in overcrowded conditions are transferred to larger dwellings,
but this is specially difficult at the present time owing to the shortage of accommodation
and to the unstable economic conditions. Mutual exchanges of tenancies