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provided in new houses on sections of Becontree still to be developed. At Becontree,
Old Oak estate, Hammersmith, Beachcroft buildings, Cranford cottages and Brookstreet
dwellings, Limehouse, and the Council's dwellings in Poplar, electric lighting
is being installed by the supply authorities in some of the existing houses and flats at
the request of the tenants. At Watling estate, Kennings estate, Kennington, and
Dickens estate, Bermondsey, the supply authority is wiring and providing one or
more utility points in each house or tenement for electric lighting ; and at Whitmore
estate, Hoxton, and AVhiston House, Shoreditch, electricity has been installed for
lighting, and at the option of the tenants for cooking and heating. At
Wormholt and Castlenau estates electricity is being installed for lighting in all
the houses. At Castlenau estate a group of 57 houses has been wired for cooking
and heating, as well as lighting, and a similar installation will be provided by the
supply authority in any house at Old Oak estate if desired by the tenant. In these
cases the tenants are able to hire at reasonable rents electric appliances, in the use
of which the supply authorities undertake to give instruction. The experiment
of installing electricity for cooking and heating as well as lighting, is being carefully
watched by the Council with a view to the extension of the principle to other estates
if it proves satisfactory.
Staff.
Ihe average number of workmen employed by contractors on the Council s
housing development operations at the end of the year was about 11,280. About
534 men were continually engaged during the year on works of maintenance and
repair at the Council's dwellings and estates, while the local management staff,
including superintendents, estate clerks, porters, etc., numbered about 138, and
women workers, i.e. laundresses, bedmakers, etc., about 53.
Local
housing
scheme—
Vauban-
street area.
During the year the Bermondsey Metropolitan Borough Council submitted
for the Council's approval a scheme for the clearance of an unhealthy area in the
borough, about 4£ acres in extent, known as the Vauban-street area, which the
borough council proposed to redevelop by the erection of cottages. The Council
was of opinion that a site such as this, situated in a densely populated industrial
district close to the centre of London, should be utilised to the fullest advantage.
The proposal of the borough council to provide on the area a limited amount of
accommodation in cottages would have had the effect of encroaching on the housing
accommodation provided in other parts of London and would thereby diminish
the number of dwellings available for the general needs of the County. The Council,
therefore, felt itself unable to give its approval to the scheme being carried out on
the lines proposed by the borough council, and suggested that suitable block dwellings
hygienically arranged should be erected instead.
Grants to
Metropolitan
Borough
Council.
During the year the Council agreed to make supplemental contributions from
the county rate under section 2 (5) of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act-, 1924,
of £1 a year for 40 years in respect of each of 15 tenements erected by the Poplar
Metropolitan Borough Council on sites in Bedford-street and Ford-street, Poplar;
and also in respect of each of 1,216 houses erected by the Woolwich Metropolitan
Borough Council on its housing estate at Eltham.
Housing
progress in
Greater
London.
Returns as to the progress of housing in Greater London since the war are
submitted to the Council periodically. The latest return brings the figures up to
31st December, 1927. The number of houses of all classes provided in 1927 in
Greater London was 41,800. This is a much higher figure than for any previous
year since the war, and, so far as can be judged from the statistics available, more
than that provided in any year before the war. Of the 15,843 houses provided by
local authorities in Greater London in 1927, more than one-half (8,201) were provided
by the Council to meet the needs of the County of London only, which is a
much larger number than in any preceding year.
The total number of new houses and flats provided during the whole period from
1920 to 1927 inclusive was 159,037, which includes 55,610 provided by local