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66
the inspections. Repairs to property were limited to that work necessary
to comply with the more urgent standards of the Public Health Acts.
No further houses were reported with a view to the making of demolition
or clearance orders, while the demolition of properties already condemned
was suspended. The standard of housing then fell; while, too,
the position in regard to crowding became very much worse.
Demolition of Houses
The earliest of the Acts enabling local authorities to clear unhealthy
areas were the Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvements Acts of
1875 and 1879. Further powers were given by the Housing of the
Working Classes Acts, 1885 and 1890. This latter Act though often
amended was the principal Act until 1925. Little real clearance of
slums or collections of unsatisfactory houses was carried out under
these powers. The 1930 Housing Act was the first Act designed to
speed up the clearance of unhealthy areas, larger subsidies being introduced
specifically for houses built for occupation by those displaced
from slum areas. The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, gave
more favourable subsidies. Local authorities were required to complete
five-year programmes of slum clearance operations. These programmes
were to provide for the demolition of nearly half a million houses. By
the outbreak of the war about 300,000 of these houses had been made
the subject of confirmed Clearance or Compulsory Purchase Orders.
About 173,000 houses in the pre-war programme were still occupied in
1940. Between 1939 and 1952 44,000 houses were dealt with, leaving
about 128,000 houses still outstanding which were considered before the
war to be unfit for human habitation. To this figure must now be added
those houses which have become unfit for habitation since the beginning
of the war. Some indication of the size of the slum clearance problem
of the country as a whole can be obtained from the number of old houses.
Some four million houses in the country are over 75 years of age; of
these two and a quarter million are over 100 years old.
During the year a number of Demolition Orders and Closing Orders
were made which affected the following houses:
Demolition Order: 39, West Street, Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Closing Orders: Dower House Cottage.
4 and 6, High Street, Pinner.
38, 42, 44, 46 and 48, Milton Road.
51, Pinner Road.
34, Milton Road.
5a, Alma Road.
At their meeting in October the Clearance and Redevelopment
Committee declared the following Clearance Areas:
Palmerston Road Clearance Area, 1953, comprising numbers 2, 4, 6,
8, 10 and 12, Palmerston Road.
Pinner Hill Road Clearance Area, 1953, comprising numbers 1, 3,
5 and 7, Pinner Hill Road.
Little Common Clearance Area, 1953, comprising numbers 29, 30,
31, 32, 33 and 34, Little Common, Stanmore.