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31
were ten four-bedroomed houses occupied by tenants who require
three bedrooms only, so it was agreed that steps be taken to obtain
vacant possession of these ten houses to offer to an equivalent number
of families who require this number of bedrooms, leaving only
thirty-four four-bedroomed houses to be erected. The proposals
therefore submitted by the Council for the abatement of overcrowding
were for the erection of thirty-four four-bedroomed houses
and ten three-bedroomed houses.
The appointed day from which fresh overcrowding would be
an offence in this district was fixed as January 1st, 1937. For the
education of owners and tenants, in the hope that it would tend to
prevent, to some extent, overcrowding occurring during the later
months of the year, in the summer informatory leaflets were issued
to owners and estate agents and posters put up drawing attention
to the position that would shortly prevail. The same steps were
again taken late in December. In a rapidly growing district such
as this, transfer of population occurs to a marked degree, more particularly
in that class of house in which overcrowding is likely to
be found. The fact that over forty houses found on one day to be
overcrowded were not so in the course of a few weeks, is evidence
of this. Now while these houses, which at the time of the survey
were crowded but were later found not to be so, removed, at the
time of the consideration of their proposals, the necessity of any
action by the Council with regard to these particular properties, it
is conceivable that some of these families have merely transferred
to other houses in the district, and that also, of course, there will
have occurred much new overcrowding by the operation of the
same conditions which lead to that degree of crowding which was
found to prevail. There must have been on January 1st, much more
overcrowding than is revealed by the returns submitted at the time
consideration was being given to the Council's proposals in May,
1936. While it is admitted that the legal obligations of the Council
under the Act have been or will be met by the proposals, complete
action within the spirit of the Act cannot be taken without a resurvey,
or possibly a limited survey concentrated on those portions
of the district which were found to contain most of the overcrowded
houses, though it would appear, however, that there would be little
enough to be gained by taking such action until the Council is in a
better position to provide alternative accommodation.
By December 31st some amelioration in overcrowding had
occurred. 11 families requiring 3-bedroomed houses had been
rehoused in Council houses and 6 had found other suitable accommodation.
In addition to those houses found overcrowded at the time of
the survey, there was 35 instances in which, owing to the ageing of
the children, the houses would be overcrowded within two years.
Of these families four have been rehoused in Council houses and
four have found other suitable accommodation.