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25
Procedure during the War.
Action under the Housing Acts hinges on the initial steps of
routine housing inspection being undertaken by the Sanitary
Inspectors. Owing to the depletion of the staff, such routine
inspection, of course, cannot be carried out. There are, too, the
other important factors of shortage of labour, and, still more so,
of shortage of materials. It would serve little purpose, then, even
though it were practicable, for the sanitary inspectors to draw up
schedules of work required to bring properties up to a certain state
of repair if, as proves so often to be the case, such work could not
be undertaken. Routine housing inspection as such, therefore,
must temporarily be abandoned, and the attention of the inspectors
in regard to housing be devoted to obtaining rectification of those
defects of such a magnitude as to possess real sanitary significance.
Policy in regard to slum clearance was outlined in Circular 1866
of the Ministry of Health, dated the 8th September, 1939. At that
date it was decided that, for the time being, no further enquiries
into Slum Clearance Orders would be held and that, therefore, local
authorities should take no further steps in connection with Orders
which had not reached the stage of local enquiry. Where an Order
had been confirmed by the Minister, the opinion was expressed that,
save in exceptional circumstances, steps taken should stop short of
actual demolition because it was desirable, in view of the possible
destruction of housing accommodation by air attack, that the
existing supply of accommodation should not be diminished. In
view of their appreciation of the need of retaining properties to
meet such contingencies, it is regrettable they did not obtain powers
to restrain owners from demolishing much more sound premises
merely to obtain immediate personal gain. The same Circular
indicated that, generally speaking, the Ministry would not be
prepared, for the time being, to approve of the erection of further
houses, and in regard to houses in the course of construction he
asked local authorities to concentrate on those houses in an
advanced state of construction, and not to continue work on houses
in an early stage.