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(b.) Day Nursery.
The Public Health Committee has under consideration at
present the question of the Day Nursery. Twenty-five years ago
a house in the Haydons Road, South Wimbledon, was acquired
for the purposes of a Day Nursery by a small committee of
voluntary workers. Beginning with some twenty children, the
numbers steadily increased, and the two adjoining houses were
acquired and all thrown into one. The Institution was carried
on by voluntary subscription, for the charge made on the
mothers only covered a small part of the expenses.
On the passing of the Maternity and Child Welfare Act
1918, the Committee of Management decided to transfer the
South Wimbledon Day Nursery to the Wimbledon Borough
Council "to be administered by them as the Authority under
the Maternity and Child Welfare Act 1918, and they (the
Committee) have now arrived at the decision to offer the buildings,
Nos. 176, 178, and 180, Haydons Road, Wimbledon, with
the furniture, fittings and equipment, to the Council."
This offer was accepted by the Council in June 1919, since
which time the administration has been under the Maternity
and Child Welfare Sub-Committee.
The present premises, having been adapted from dwelling
houses, are faulty in construction, the rooms are badly arranged,
and much space is lost by old passages and staircases. The
annual cost of repairs due in some part to vibration caused by
heavy motor traffic is excessive, and the Committee are considering
alternative schemes (a) of entire reconstruction,
(b) of new premises on a different site, (c) of temporary accommodation.
One difficulty in regard to new premises is that a
suitable site for a day nursery is not easily found, for it
requires to be in healthy surroundings and yet of easy access
for the families using it.
(c) Heating of the Isolation Hospital.
The Committee is at present making enquiry into different
systems of heating with. a view to reducing expenditure
as the present system is expensive and wasteful.
(d) Housing.
The Wimbledon Borough Council decided at the end of
1923 to build 87 working class dwellings of the parlour type.
It may be considered that this small number indicates a
lack of enterprise on the part of the Borough Council, but
a knowledge of local conditions reveals the true position in
regard to this Housing question. The present shortage of labour
and materials prevents a general building of houses which
could be sold or let at prices satisfactory to present economic
conditions, but in Wimbledon there is the additional factor
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