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ventilated, having adequate natural light, and, in nearly all cases, having
artificial lighting points in each room. They are not situated in narrow
streets. They all have an individual piped water supply of the highest
purity, and are connected to main drainage. Each has its own water
closet, even though it be external. Improvement and addition in food
storage facility would be an advantage in the light of modern knowledge
but unfortunately this is rarely practicable. (So far as the orientation
of food storage facility is concerned, it is not only our sub-standard
houses that invite criticism.)
Above all, these houses are rented at a figure which it is within the
means of the tenant to pay. From our observations and many conversations
with the tenants, we have no doubt that the disadvantages
these dwellings offer are more easily borne than would be the worry
and distress caused by an insufficient income to pay the high rentals
which are necessary for a modern dwelling.
Sanitary Inspectors, whose work brings them into the closest
touch with the domestic lives of the people, will be among the first to
welcome the wholesale demolition of all properties which fail to reach
a health-giving standard, so soon as such action is a practical proposition,
but if the matter is to be dealt with as a national problem, it may be
found that Beckenham is very low in the list of area priorities.
At the end of the year 1952, there still remained between four and
five hundred properties which by reason of disrepair and sanitary
defects, must be considered " not in all respects fit for human habitation "
in accordance with the Housing Acts. These properties are scheduled
for inspection and such action as the Council may decide. Complicated
administrative and legal procedure necessitated by statutory machinery
still prevails, and progress will be slow.
The words " unfit for human habitation " taken out of their
context appear to cause much confusion. A house in any respect unfit
for human habitation calls for action under Section 9 of the Housing
Act, 1936. In determining whether a house is fit, regard must be paid
to disrepair and sanitary defects. The former term is not defined, but
the latter is, and includes :—
Lack of air space.
Darkness, Dampness.
Absence of adequate and readily accessible water supply
or sanitary accommodation.
Inadequate paving or drainage of house, etc.
It will be seen that a house with broken yard paving and small areas
of dampness is properly classed as unfit for habitation so far as the Law
defines, but the loose use of the term in general conversation and report,
frequently presents a picture of circumstances infinitely worse than
reality.
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