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57
There is a great deal of empty space as well as empty dilapidated houses
in this area. My suggestion to the London County Council was to prepare
a comprehensive scheme for re-building and to start building on the part of
the site which is now unoccupied. Having put up one block, the people in a
part of the occupied area could be accommodated, and their houses demolished.
When another block had been competed, this could be occupied, and so on,
until the whole area had been cleared with as little disturbance as passible.
The vast majority of the houses in the Borough are old, and many are
worn out. The gardens or open spaces at the rear have been partly or wholly
built over in hundreds of houses. Factories or workshops have been erected
in many, and sculleries or back addition rooms in others.
The general character of the defects found in the houses inspected are
due to dilapidations following inattention or neglect during the war years.
At their meeting on January, 1920, the Public Health Committee decided
to recommend the Council to appoint five temporary Sanitary Inspectors to
inspect, report, and carry out their work generally under the Housing of the
Working Classes Act, 1919, and thus to assist the district inspectors working
under the Public Health Act, 1891, and by-laws, including those of houseslet-in-lodgings,
in making a house to house inspection of the Borough as rapidly
as possible.
!
These five Inspectors were appointed and commenced their duties in
August, 1920.
A house to house inspestion was organised throughout the Borough. It
was operated simultaneously in 20 districts and great progress was made.
The five temporary inspectors made a house to house inspection in their
respective areas, and served an intimation notice in the ordinary way. If
the defects were net remedied, a second inspection took place and a specification
was drawn up of the whole work required and submitted to the Council
for their approval and for authority to serve a notice under Section 28.
Notices were served on the owners under Section 28 of the Housing and
Town Planning, &c., Act, 1919, requiring them within a reasonable time to
execute such works as may be necessary to make the houses in all respects
reasonably fit for human habitation. If the notices were not complied with,
the Borough Engineer, after reasonable notice to the owners was instructed
tc ei.ter upon the premises and to carry out the work specified.