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34
Sections 36 and 90 of the Housing Act, 1957, contain
provisions designed to deal with these problems. Section
90 gives a local authority power to fix the number of
persons who can occupy a room for sleeping purposes in
houses let in lodgings or occupied by more than one family.
Section 36 enables a local authority to require the pro
vision of suitable amenities. In default of executing
such works the owner may choose to reduce the number of
occupants in the house. This option to obtain possession
against the occupiers makes the section difficult to
apply in some cases. Most of the families occupying these
houses are unlikely to be favourably placed on the Council's
housing list, not having lived in the Borough long enough.
Any abrupt legal action in such a case would possibly
create an even greater hardship. Informal action has in
the long run been successful in many cases.
The Act does not itself lay down specific standards
to be applied to these houses. The Metropolitan Boroughs
Standing Joint Committee has suggested a code of practice
for general use in the Metropolitan area and the Council
have resolved to use this as a guide for the time being
and to ask the Middlesex Borough and District Councils
Association to consider standards for use by Middlesex
authorities, with a view to securing uniformity of action
throughout the County. This is still under consideration.
An important fact about overcrowding in general, is
that it is not always realised that the overcrowding
clauses of the Housing Act, 1957, are not so restrictive
as might be thought in fixing the total number of occupants
for a dwelling-house. With its standard of two units per
room, with allowances for smaller rooms and with children
between 1 year and 10 years of age counting as half units,
the average five roomed house has a permitted number of
8½ units. All living rooms and bedrooms have to be included
in arriving at the permitted number. Our larger houses,
with a dozen or more habitable rooms, can legally house
quite large numbers of people, especially with children.
We receive quite a number of complaints alleging overcrowding,
which on investigation are found not to be
justified on the legal standard. Have we become so used
to houses being occupied by small families that a fully
occupied house calls for adverse comment and complaint?
Admittedly, the official standard might not be thought to
be a good one, but there would have been no point in an
unduly severe legal standard which was not capable of
attainment for some years to come.