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Dwelling Houses.
The demolition of dwelling houses in Beckenham which, for the
past 10 or 20 years of their advancing life, have earned inclusion in a
sub-standard classification, and their replacement with sound and
modern structures, would be an ideal achievement. There must surely be
considerable doubt as to whether it is an economic or practicable
possibility. Such action does not appear to be so essential here as in
other areas of the Country ; areas where, for instance, back-to-back
houses, and those without piped water supply and individual water
closet provision, abound. Comparison, indeed, indicates that our part
of the national housing problem relates more to reclamation rather than
to wholesale demolition. A report on one northern Town, as an example,
tells of some 45,000 houses where communal watercloset accommodation
only is available, and these are not scheduled in the 20,000 worst houses
in that Town.
Consequently, the Officers intimately concerned with the older
properties in Beckenham, and with their lack of modern amenity, viewed
with interest and enthusiasm much of the White Paper "Houses—the
Next Step" presented to Parliament by the Ministry of Housing and
Local Government in November, 1953.
The proper emphasis which had been placed on the need for new
houses, and the successful achievement, throughout the Country, of
numerical targets, led many to overlook the place which properly maintained
old properties can take in the solution of the national housing
problem. The effect of such proper maintenance on the existing lengthy
housing lists may be negligible, but the extended life of these houses will
certainly keep the already overloaded lists from expanding.
The purpose of the White Paper was to focus attention on existing
properties ; to overtake the arrears of repair work which had been
neglected ; to keep structurally sound houses in good order ; to improve
those which lack modern amenity ; and to demolish those so unfit as to
be incapable of repair at reasonable expense.
In the wake of the White Paper came several Ministerial Circulars,
and, finally, the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, to give statutory
support to the programme.
The Public Health Department's concern was with the provisions
relating to standards of fitness ; with the latter in relation to reasonable
expense; with owners and occupiers rights in the matter of increased
rentals; and with facilities for the improvement and conversion of
properties.
Legislation tends to become overlapping, repetitive, and sometimes
contradictory. These were not entireJy new legal provisions, but a
variation, and, in part, a clarification of older ones. It may be argued
that the standard of fitness for dwellings is not now so stringent as that
previously existing. One notices, for instance, in the conditions relating
to improvement grants, that a house is now required, inter alia, to be
substantially free from damp", whereas the Housing Act, 1949, (which
first introduced grant provision) demanded that a house should be "in all
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