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36
SECTION D.
HOUSING.
Clearance Areas and Individual Unfit Dwellings.
The Council's post war programme for Slum Clearance, as
approved by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, made
provision for dealing with a total of 184 houses within five years
ending 1961.
Of this number, 67 are already covered by operative clearance
or compulsory purchase orders and 6 are in a Clearance Area for
which a clearance order has been submitted to the Ministry but has
not yet become operative.
In the balance of 111 houses, there were included approximately
35 houses which, subject to a detailed inspection, will be
dealt with individually by Demolition Orders. Four of these have
been dealt with and already demolished, but the bulk of them will
be dealt with during the last year or so of the programme.
A survey of proposed Clearance Area properties carried out
during the year revealed that changes had taken place since the
original list was compiled. Many premises had been converted
and are now used solely for business purposes, and others had been
improved to a degree which precluded their retention on the list.
As a consequence of this revision, the number of houses which
have yet to be represented in Clearance Areas has been reduced
from 76 to 35.
Subject to detailed inspections, therefore, there remain 31
houses to be dealt with by Demolition Orders and 35 to be dealt
with by Clearance or Compulsory Purchase Orders.
Rent Act, 1957.
This Act came into force on the 6th July, 1957.
The role of the Health Department in the administration of
the Act is confined almost entirely to the consideration of
applications made by tenants of controlled houses for Certificates
of Disrepair.
In broad terms, the possession of this Certificate enables a
tenant to resist the rent increase permitted by the Act and the
granting of a Certificate is justified only where the dwelling is in
disrepair by reason of defects which ought reasonably to be
remedied "having due regard to the age, character and locality of
the dwelling."
A local Authority as far as the alleged defects are concerned,
is in the position of an arbiter, but both tenant and landlord may
appeal to a County Court if dissatisfied with the decision of a
Local Authority.