View report page

22
Certificates of Disrepair.
31 applications for Certificates of Disrepair under the Housing
Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, were received by the Council during
the year and after investigations 4 were withdrawn. 20 Certificates
were issued and 7 were refused.
It does not really seem that extensive use has been made by
owners of the power to increase rents. The variety of reasons
coming to light on application forms for Certificates of Disrepair is
quite instructive and presents from time to time quite interesting
and difficult points for decision.
Improvement Grants.
A close liaison is maintained with the Engineer and Surveyor
in assessing the desirability of approving applications under this
heading. This collaboration has signficant practical advantages not
least of which is that it discounts the possibility of an Improvement
Grant being seriously considered for property which we regard as
likely to come within our five-year plan.,
Re-Housing—Medical Aspects.
My advice was sought during the year on some 186 housing
applications respecting which medical recommendations for priority
have been submitted by hospitals or private practitioners. This
figure remains substantially the same as for last year.
The reasons determining medical priority have remained on
much the same basis for many years being interpreted of course in
the light of the individual case. In view of the large number of
requests for medical priority which have been made over the years
I think it will be conceded that the Council's arrangements for
according medical priority have over a long period worked with to
say the least reasonable satisfaction. Whilst it has been impossible
to please everyone—in fact the allocation of the Council's building
programme in its entirety to medical priorities would hardly have
enabled this to be done—yet the number of dissatisfied or at any rate
openly dissatisfied has certainly been negligible. I do not think that
unless the Medical Officer of Health is given a free hand as I have
been and unless the general practitioners view the position with
understanding—which in Hornchurch has been done—any system
of medical priorities can end other than disastrously. I do not think
that any case of real outstanding medical appeal has gone unassisted.
Overcrowding.
Coincident with the increased number of houses being made
available in the district and even allowing for an incursion of
population from other areas it is reasonable to presume that the
actual amount of overcrowding in the district should have been
reduced. The overcrowding position is of course influenced not only
by the standard insisted upon by law but also upon the standard considered
appropriate by the individual householders. There must
be a substantial number of instances in which although no legal