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36
housing.
New Building.
During the year 416 new houses were erected. Of these, 146 prefabricated
bungalows, 69 houses and 8 flats were put up by the Council.
72 temporary pre-fabricated houses were erected by the London County
Council on their Headstone Estate and 121 other houses were erected by
private enterprise. Other accommodation is available to the Council
by the requisitioning of private houses, the larger of these being converted
for the use of five or more families.
Allocation of Houses.
Any bouses the Council has available for letting are allocated by
the Housing Committee on a points system. To meet the case of special
families whose needs cannot be assessed on such a basis the Council
agreed to give special consideration to the following classes of applicant
recommended by the medical officer of health—families one or more of
whose members is or are suffering from tuberculosis, families living in
overcrowded conditions, families requiring to be rehoused as a result of
operative Clearance Orders and families living in houses subject to
operative Demolition Orders.
In regard to those living in condemned properties, the Council has
a legal obligation to rehouse those living in the house at the time of the
Order, in fact the Council's intention and power to rehouse has to appear
in the application. This legal obligation of course does not extend to
those who might go into the house after the making of the Order. In
regard to the occupants of houses the subject of a Demolition Order
there is not the same legal obligation on the Council to rehouse. Actually
the Council has accepted this liability. The Council agreed to the
Housing Committee taking on the duties of the Public Health Committee
in regard to the construction of new houses for the occupancy of those
dispossessed by the making of these Orders. Of the Orders made before
the war a number had not been enforced by the outbreak of the war.
A number of houses on the South Harrow Estate were intended for
the occupants of these houses. As their occupants had not been
rehoused nothing could be done towards effecting the demolition of the
properties. Once the war had started the Minister requested that no
houses should be demolished, so that even those which became vacant
were not as a rule demolished though an application for permission to
demolish made in respect of some of them was granted. The position
then is that there are many houses in the district the subject of Demolition
or Clearance Orders which are still occupied. In the case of some of
these the Council owes a duty to the occupants to rehouse. The
following is a list of these houses (with the numbers of houses still occupied
in parenthesis):
Clearance Orders: West End Lane No. 1 (1) and No. 2 (2); Ferndale
Terrace (8); High Street, Stanmore, No. 3 (2) and No. 4 (4); College
Hill Road (2); Headstone Place (20); Pleasant Place (3); Brewery
Cottages (5), a total of 47.
Demolition Orders: 1-11, Peel Road (1); 93, 95 (1) and 99, 101
(1), Greenford Road; Kingsfield Terrace (6), a total of 9.
Closing Orders: Canning Place (2).