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23
The Acton Borough Council submitted proposals to the
Minister of Health for the abatement of over-crowding, and eventually
a site in the Vale was selected as suitable for the purpose of
the erection of houses for the working-classes. A public enquiry was
hold on 29th September 1937, and the consent of the Ministry was
obtained to the scheme on 4th November 1987.
The site occupies an area of 9.55 acres and it is proposed
to erect about 250 dwellings on the site.
The Council made an application for the fixing of the
appointed day on 22nd July 1936 and on 22nd December 1936, an
order was made that the appointed day for the purpose of Section
of the Act (which provided for entry in rent-books or similar
documents or a summary in the prescribed form of certain povisions
of the Act relating to overcrowding) shall be 1st January 1937, and
the appointed day for the purpose of Sections 3 and 8 (which
contain provisions as to the offences in relation to overcrowding) and
section 4 and 68 of the Act shall be 1st July 1937. It is unnecessary
to stake that the object of the order is to facilitate matters in order
that existing cases of overcrowding shall be abated as soon as
possible and that no new cases of overcrowding shall come into
being.
To attain this end, one of the first duties laid upon the
public Health Department was the measuring of rooms for the
purpose of ascertaining the permitted numbers for each workingclass
dwelling, and for the furnishing of this information to landlords
for insertion on the prescribed form of notice in the rent-books.
For the purposes of Surveys A and B, 1,678 dwellings had been
measured and the figures were available for insertion in the rentbook.
In order to continue the measurements the services of Mr.
Peterson were retained, but he obtained another appointment and
left on 20th September 1936. A successor was not appointed until
9th. November 1936. In the meantime, many applications were
made by landlords and their agents for the necessary data for
insertion in the rent-books. Some miscalculations were made by
us; we did not anticipate the large numbers of applications which
were received from landlords or house agents in the particulars
which had to be entered in the rent-books. Up to 31st December
1937. 902 applications were received and these reffered to 3,769
houses. The work of measuring was delayed on account of these
applications, for it will be appreciated that the houses for which the
applications were made could not be very expeditiously measured
becauses the officer spent a large proportion of the time travelling
from one house to the other. Usually only a few of the houses were
unclose aproximity to each other.