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Metropolitan Borough Council, and 200 houses to the St. Marylebone Metropolitan
Borough Council. Negotiations were in progress at the end of the year with other
metropolitan borough councils with a view to a similar allocation of the remaining
houses to be erected.
It is proposed to erect on the estate about 662 houses, and 60 flats in threestorey
buildings. Offers to undertake the work on a cost basis with a variable fee
or commission, on the lines of the contract for the development of Watling estate,
were invited from five firms. As a result three offers were received and the firm
of Wilson Lovatt and Sons, Limited, was entrusted with the work. The
Coimcil, on 16th November, 1926, approved a capital estimate of £450,000 in respect
of the 662 houses, the preparation of the estimate for the three-storey buildings
being deferred for the present.
St. Helier
estate.
A compulsory order for the acquisition of about 846 acres of land for St. Helier
estate, situated mainly in the parishes of Morden and Carshalton, was made by the
Council on 15th December, 1925. The Order was duly submitted to the Minister
of Health for confirmation and after a local inquiry held on 11th February, 1926, the
Minister confirmed the scheme, with slight modifications, on 13th May, 1926. At
the end of the year the preliminary plan of development was in course of prepreparation.
St. Quintinpark
site.
The Council on 12th October, 1926, decided to appropriate for housing
purposes a site at St. Quintin-park, Kensington, originally acquired for purposes
of the education service. The site, which is about eight acres in extent, is very openly
situated and has a frontage of about 520 feet to Dalgarno-gardens, a 50 feet road,
in which the sewers are already laid. It is bounded on the west by the public
recreation ground known as Little Wormwood Scrubs, on the north by allotment
gardens bordering the Great Western Railway, and on the east by land belonging
to the Clement Talbot motor works. The land, which has a gentle slope towards
the south, is practically clear of buildings and could appropriately be developed
by the erection of tenement dwellings for the working classes. The total charge
against the housing account in respect of the land is estimated not to exceed
£15,500. No definite arrangements for the development of the site have yet been
made.
Tabardstreet,
etc.,
scheme.
The Order confirming the Tabard-street and Grotto-place, Southwark, and
Crosby-row, Bermondsey, a scheme under Part I. of the HousingAct, 1890, comprising
altogether about 18½ acres, required the Council to erect on the Tabard-street area
dwellings for the accommodation of not fewer than 2,580 persons of the working
class, and stipulated that such dwellings should include not fewer than 25 cottages
to be erected upon the detached portion of the area between Law-street and Little
Hunter-street. The clearance of the three areas comprised in the scheme involved
the displacement of 4,550 persons of the working class, but on account of the considerable
number of vacant rooms existing in the neighbourhood when the confirming
Order was made and the amount of housing accommodation which was being provided
by the Council for the county generally, the rehousing obligation under the scheme
was limited to the provision of accommodation for 2,580 persons. Accommodation
has been provided on the main portion of the area known as Tabard Garden estate
for 2,388 persons in seven block dwellings and one cottage, but there are still more
than 1,000 persons residing in old dwellings in the three areas comprised in the
scheme.
To find a solution of the difficulty of continuing the work of clearance, the
Council on 22nd June, 1926, decided to apply to the Minister of Health for a modification
of the original Order so as to enable accommodation to be provided under the
scheme for rehousing 1,000 additional persons on such sites or site as the Minister of
Health might approve, and to cancel the requirement that certain of the rehousing
accommodation must be provided by the erection of cottages. On 10th July, 1926,