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Part II— Applications for Cancellation of Certificates:
(7) Applications by Landlords to Local Authority for
cancellation of certificates 30
(8) Objections by tenants to cancellation of certificates 6
(1 eventually withdrawn).
(9) Decisions by Local Authority to cancel in spite of
tenant's objection -
(10) Certificates cancelled by Local Authority 20
Improvement Grants.
In connection with applications under this heading our advice has
been sought in 30 instances during the year. Our opinion has then been
submitted to the Surveyor for consideration by the Committee when the
application for grant came up for determination.
Re-Housing—Medical Aspects.
My advice was sought during the year on some 127 housing applications
respecting which medical recommendations for priority had been
submitted by hospitals or private practitioners.
Overcrowding.
Instances still arise where gross overcrowding has been brought to
your notice and as a result has been remedied. It is essential that if
satisfactory living standards are to be maintained overcrowding of a
marked and unnecessary kind should be frowned upon. It seems to me
that unless a careful watch is kept on the situation serious overcrowding
once started can spread rapidly and the necessity for taking the earliest
and most effective steps both to remedy overcrowding where it occurs and
to discourage it where it seems likely to occur are of paramount public
importance.
One can understand the position in which a minor degree of temporary
overcrowding results from housing difficulty but the instances
which have demanded action for the most part were not within this
category. Especially perhaps attention should be drawn to the potential
result of sub-letting and taking in lodgers without regard to the permitted
number (which exists for every house and which is by no means too
onerous in its application). Economic necessity cannot always be held
even to be a cause of certain overcrowding arising in this way. House
owners or occupiers who propose therefore to go to the limit in occupation,
by multi-family occupation, should give serious thought to the
Permitted Number for the house involved, upon which information is
always available at my office.
Caravans.
The Rainham Site has been dealt with so far as the law permits.
It is still not easy to deal with caravans effectively and expeditiously
and they are still periodically moving into our district.