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($$$)(e) Any other particulars with respect to overcrowding conditions upon
which the Medical Officer of Health may consider it desirable to report
*
*See paragraph on overcrowding below.
Overcrowding.—The overcrowding provisions of the Housing Act did not
take effect until the 1st January, 1937, and it is impossible to furnish a normal
return under the heading "Overcrowding" above. In the second half of 1935,
a survey of housing in the Borough revealed that there were then 683 families living
under overcrowded conditions according to the standards laid down in the Housing
Act. In the latter half of 1936 to enable "permitted numbers" to be supplied
to landlords there was a more detailed survey from which overcrowded houses
already measured were excluded. Two hundred and sixty one new cases of overcrowding
were discovered, but in order to ascertain what the position was with
regard to the first 683, a special inspection was made of all these families in the
first quarter of 1937. It was found that 414 of those cases were no longer overcrowded.
Overcrowding had been reduced in various ways, without any organised
effort on the part of the authorities. It was found that seventy-nine families had
become sufficiently reduced in number, either through persons leaving to get married
and taking up house on their own, or through death. Additional accommodation
for overcrowded families was found by re-arrangement of lettings in the same houses
in seventy-nine instances. In twelve cases where the "permitted number" was
wrong, a correction showed that there was no overcrowding. Fifty-four families
were re-housed by the Woolwich Borough Council, either as part of their general
housing policy, or through slum clearance. Three were re-housed by the London
County Council as part of their abatement of overcrowding policy. Twenty-two
were dealt with in other ways. One hundred and sixty five families had removed
to other unknown addresses.
This experience would seem to indicate that there is normally a large amount
of movement amongst overcrowded families, and certainly foreshadows the difficulties
which the future holds in the detection and elimination of overcrowding.
It cannot be assumed that the 165 families whose present addresses are unknown are
not living in overcrowded conditions. Investigations are proceeding to ascertain
whether any of them are amongst the 261 new cases of overcrowding.
Estimate of new houses required.—In the latter half of 1935 a survey of all working
class houses in the Borough was carried out, and 683 houses were found to be overcrowded
within the meaning of the Housing Act, 1935.
The London County Council as the Authority responsible for the provision of
new houses required to abate overcrowding in the Metropolis, early in the year asked
that Borough Councils should estimate their requirements on a uniform basis which
they submitted. The process of calculation, which took into account such accommodation
as was found to be vacant during the course of the survey, the amount