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Inspection under the Housing Acts.
Sanitary authorities have been given increasingly greater powers to
obtain satisfactory housing conditions since the time when any premises
in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health were made
statutory nuisances under the Public Health Act of 1875. By the
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885, sanitary authorities had to
secure the proper sanitary condition of all premises within their districts.
In 1890, it became the duty of the Medical Officer of Health to report to
his authority any dwelling-house that appeared to be in a state so
dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation.
Local authorities under the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909, were
required to see that inspections were made in their districts of houses so
dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation.
The implied contract that a house should be kept by the landlord reasonably
fit for human habitation during the holding, became under the 1925
Housing Act an obligation on the owners of properties not exceeding a
certain rental to see that the house would be kept in all respects reasonably
fit for human habitation. At the same time it was made the duty of the
local authority to cause inspections to be made from time to time with
a view to ascertaining whether any dwelling-house was in a state so
dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation, and
a duty of the Medical Officer of Health to report such houses to the local
authority.
The procedure under this Act for dealing with groups of houses was
replaced by the machinery of the 1936 Housing Act. The "clearance
areas" under this Act are groups of dwelling-houses which by reason
of disrepair or sanitary defect were unfit for human habitation, or which
by reason of bad arrangement or of the narrowness or bad arrangement
of the streets were dangerous or injurious to the health of the inhabitants
and which were more satisfactorily dealt with by the demolition of all
the buildings. Steps can also be taken to effect the demolition of any
dwelling-house unfit for human habitation which is occupied or is of a
type suitable for occupation by persons of the working classes. In
determining whether a house is fit for human habitation, regard is to be
had to the extent to which, by reason of disrepair or sanitary defects,
the house falls short of the provisions of any bye-laws in operation in the
district, or of the general standard of housing accommodation for the
working classes in the district.
Apart from the structural state of houses, conditions of living may
be unsatisfactory because of overcrowding. The Housing Act, 1935,
was the first great effort to tackle this problem on a national scale. The
obligation was imposed on every local authority to cause an inspection
to be made with a view to ascertaining what dwelling-houses were overcrowded,
and to submit proposals for providing new houses to abate the
overcrowding. The degree of crowding which could occur before the
house was statutorily overcrowded was very high, this standard having
to be adopted because of the appalling conditions obtaining in parts of
the country. It was accepted that when circumstances had permitted
the abatement of most of the crowding according to that standard, a
higher criterion would be adopted.