View report page

14
an improvement scheme for the re-arrangement and re-construction of the
houses and streets within such area, or of some of such streets and houses;
and that any number of such areas may be included in an improvement scheme.
The Medical Officer of Health is, by the provisions of the 4th section,
compelled to inspect any area within the jurisdiction of the Local Board to
which he is the appointed Medical Officer of Health, which is complained of
to him by two or more Justices of the Peace acting within such jurisdiction,
or by twelve or more ratepayers within the District; and the Medical
Officer of Health shall inspect such area and make an official representation,
stating the facts of the case, and whether, in his opinion, the area is an
unhealthy area or not an unhealthy area for the purposes of this Act. The
section does not, however, say that he shall, if he think proper, enlarge the
area complained of by the two Justices of the Peace, or by the twelve or
more ratepayers. The Metropolitan Board of Works having received from
the Medical Officer of Health an official representation setting forth the
unhealthiness of a certain area may prepare a Scheme of their own, excluding
any part of such area and including any neighbouring lands which
they may deem to be necessary for making their Scheme efficient for
sanitary purposes. The local authority may likewise provide for widening
any existing approaches to the unhealthy area or otherwise for opening
out the same for the purposes of ventilation or health; also it shall distinguish
the lands proposed to be taken compulsorily, and shall provide for
the accommodation of at the least as many persons of the working class as
may be displaced in the area with respect to which the Scheme is proposed, in
suitable dwellings, &c. (See section 5 of the Act.)
In carrying out the provisions of the Act all that is required of the Medical
Officer of Health, in the first instance, is to make an official representation,
in the terms of the Act, to the local authority, of any group or groups of
houses which are unfit for habitation. The Medical Officer of Health must
give satisfactory reasons why the houses he condemns are unfit for habitation
; but he has nothing to do with the setting out of a given area in the
vicinity of such houses so as to afford room for the reconstruction of
suitable houses for the working classes.
The title of this Act must be strictly borne in mind; and in the carrying
out of its provisions there must be no attempt made to convert it into a
Towns Improvement Act. Yet, in preparing a Scheme for the approval
of the Home Secretary, such provision must be made therein as to
allow a sufficient space; the streets must be sufficiently widened in proportion
to the height of the adjacent buildings, and intervening buildings
must be taken, if required, to convert the area into a convenient and
appropriate site for working men's dwellings. Large sums of money
have been spent in the ornamentation of London and in the