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owner agreed to install full standard amenities as part of the rehabilitation scheme,
and the five properties were adapted so as to provide ten units of accommodation.
Slum Clearance and Redevelopment
Satisfactory progress was maintained in dealing appropriately with the 144 properties
which had been included in the Council's Slum Clearance Programme for the five
year period 1966 to 1970, and by the end of the year 10 only still remained in respect
of which action required to be initiated.
Twenty-seven dwellings which were found to be unfit as a result of normal
routine inspections were also dealt with. From experience gained since the amalgamation
of constituent authorities on 1st April, 1965 some twenty dwellings are
revealed as unfit and incapable of repair at reasonable cost during each year.
Outside the areas which the Council have already designated under Part V of the
Housing Act 1957 for comprehensive redevelopment during the next five years there
are no localities of unfit housing. The problem of unfitness remains confined to
individual houses or small groups of properties which can be conveniently dealt with
by closure, demolition or clearance under Parts II and III of the Housing Act 1957.
However, following upon a "locality survey" which had already been completed
during 1967 in respect of properties in the immediate vicinity of a group of houses
included in the Slum Clearance Programme and others already the subject of Closing
Orders, the Council designated a further Part V Housing Area at Cromwell Road,
Muswell Hill. The area, which is almost wholly residential in character, was
providing accommodation for some 115 families at the time of the original survey.
Improvement of Houses
The House Purchase and Housing Act 1959 and the Housing Acts 1961 and 1964
place a duty upon the local authority to make grants towards the cost of improving
older houses which still have a reasonable life and which presently lack amenities
in the form of hot water supply, a fixed bath or shower, wash hand basin, inside
water closet, a proper food store. As a matter of policy, older type houses are inspected
and when found to be suitable for improvement information and advice is
proffered to owners in the hope that they will undertake improvement with the aid of
grants available. In twenty-two cases a favourable response was received and
improvement schemes were carried out or put in hand.
Compulsory Improvement
During 1966 the Council had agreed, as a pilot scheme, to designate Prospect
Road, Childs Hill, as an Improvement Area under Part II of the Housing Act 1964.
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