View report page

the Public Health or Housing Acts was 3,865, and of these 1,156
houses were found to be not in all respects reasonably fit for
habitation.
A total of 903 houses were rendered fit by informal action by
the Public Health Inspectors. This informal action included the
service of intimation notices.
In 300 instances it was necessary to serve statutory notices
in order to ensure the carrying out of the requisite work.
House-to-house inspections under the Housing (Consolidated)
Regulations, 1925, were continued, the total number of inspections
in 1958 being 217.
OVERCROWDING
As a result of complaints of overcrowding by the applicants
or at the request of the County Council or the Borough Council's
Housing Department, the accommodation occupied by 72 families was
inspected,, and reports to the appropriate housing authority were
made in each case. Of the 72 families visited, ten were found to
be statutorily overcrowded.
It is a duty of the Council to give in writing,, a statement of
the permitted number of persons in respect of any dwelling, and
following applications received from either tenants or landlords for
this information, 94 dwellings were visited and measured for this
purpose,
CERTIFICATES OF DISREPAIR
The Rent Act, 1957, freed from rent control houses and flats
above a certain rateable value and allowed limited increases in
dwellings still under rent control. If the tenant of a house, after
receiving notice of rent increase is of the opinion that the house
he occupies Is not in a reasonable state of repair, he may serve a
notice on his landlord specifying the defects which ought reasonably
to be remedied, bearing in mind the age, character and location of the
premises. At the end of six weeks after service of such a notice a
tenant may make an application to the local authority for a
certificate of disrepair, if the defects remain unremedied or the
landlord has not served an undertaking to remedy them or such of them
as the tenant may have agreed to accept as sufficient. On being
satisfied that the condition of a property warrants the issue of a
certificate to the applicant, a notice of the Councils intention to
issue a certificate must be served on the landlord. A certificate of
disrepair can only be issued by the local authority, if at the end of
- 28 -