View report page

APPENDIX. IX
" the purposes of the New Central Street and Subsidiary Streets
" considerable areas which would form unhealthy areas within
" the meaning of The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890,
" and a considerable number of overcrowded and insanitary
" dwellings, and it is expedient that the Council should be
" empowered in connection with the said New Central Street
" and Subsidiary Streets to rearrange and improve the neiglibour"
ing streets courts and alleys, and that powers for the acquisition
" of property of this class should he conferred upon them as in
"this Act set forth." The above recommendation of the Parliamentary
Committee was carried out in the Bill.
Within the limits of the land which might be required as
stated in the Preamble was the Area which I have represented,
and which also was almost specifically referred to in the report
already quoted, of the Improvements Committee.
I therefore venture to think that no question can arise either
as to the necessity for dealing with such an area, or as to the
procedure to effect the same, being that of the Housing of the
Working Classes Act.
In the two years which have elapsed since the various
Committees of the Council thus reported, the general conditions
have not improved except that a number of houses have been
closed, and some pulled down, nor could one expect improvement,
but rather the reverse. My predecessor, the late Dr. Conway
Evans, writing of another area, describes what happens when
plans for improving a district are being considered. He said:
" Meanwhile, however, the fact that the houses are doomed to
" come down for the formation of the new street has operated
" most disadvantageously so far as the structural and sanitary
" condition of the property is concerned, both upon their owners
" and occupiers. In the former it has naturally induced an
" indisposition to incur any outlay which can possibly be avoided
" upon dwellings expected very shortly to be pulled down; while,
" in the latter, it has brought about feelings of callousness and
" indifference, frequently degenerating into neglect, in respect of
" the cleanliness and healthfulness of abodes from which the
" inmates expect almost weekly to be ejected This