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Another miscalculation arose from the assumption that in
terraced streets all houses, or at any rate most of the houses, were
similar in structure and arrangements. We soon found that such
was not the case, and the variation was so great that each house
had to be measured and every room in the house had to be measured
individually.
It also became obvious that one man could not deal even
with the applications which were received and on 5th April 1937
another officer was appointed for that purpose. In June, one of
the officers resigned and another was appointed in his stead. In
October, two others were appointed, and at the end of 1937, Messrs.
Slipp, Wilcox, Dowie and Bauchop were engaged almost entirely
on the work of measurement.
When the task of measurement was commenced we expanded
the scope of the work to include particulars which would be useful
and valuable in future administration, but as the applications came
in, it became evident that time would not permit of this expansion
in the work, and we had to limit the work simply to a measurement
of the rooms so as to ascertain the actual number of persons which
would be permitted in each letting. Not only was it necessary to
measure those houses which were the subject of applications, but
it was essential to complete as soon as possible the measuring of
all the houses included in Survey A and our efforts in the latter
part of 1937 have been directed with this end in view. Up to the
end of 1937, 9,960 tenements had been measured.
I estimate that about 17,000 tenements had to be measured
and over 7,000 remained unmeasured on 31st December 1937.
Complaints, of course, are almost inevitable but they have
been remarkably few. Some of the complaints are reasonable, and
we have modified our procedure in some instances. We have
pointed out the tendency to sublet the larger houses. These houses
were formerly occupied by one family, but now in some streets
about ninety per cent. of them are sublet and two, three and even
four families occupy each of these sublet houses. In the few
remaining ones which are still occupied by one family, the head of
which usually owns the house, the occupier naturally resented the
imputation that the house could be overcrowded. If the house, in
the opinion of the Inspector, is not a house built for persons of
the working-classes, he now asks if it is occupied by one family only;