London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hackney 1930

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]

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129
(b) Special measures taken or suggested, e.g., in relation to particular types of
insanitary property or in regard to arrangements for the gradual carrying out
of programmes of repair.

Under the Housing (Consolidated) Regulations, 1925, the following house-to house inspections have been carried out:—

1926849
1927845
1928381
1929407
193066
Total2,548

This does not include the special inspection and schedules required by the work
on the unhealthy areas, to which I refer later.
No less than 1,930 notices have been served in respect of defects found in the
2,548 premises visited. Smallpox and consequent visiting of contacts interfered
very greatly with house-to-house inspection.
Included in the Council's five-year housing programme is a proposal to deal
with 50 houses per annum under Part II of the Housing Act, 1930.
(<:) Extent to which houses have not an adequate internal water supply.
There are 366 houses in the Borough which have not an adequate internal
water supply. Of this number 344 have a supply tap in the yard or garden for
the exclusive use of the tenants, whilst 22 houses are provided with water from a
common supply.
(d) Extent to which houses have no water closet or other adequate sanitary accommodation
within their own curtilage.
Twenty-nine houses in the Borough have no water closet or other sanitary
accommodation within their own curtilage. In each case the tenants make use
of accommodation provided for their common use.
5.—Unhealthy Areas.
Since the difficulty is so great in repairing much of the existing housing
in the Borough, whether in the hands of private owners or purchased by the
Council, it will be suggested that clearance schemes afford the best remedy. But
although this difficulty exists, it is also a fact that the sanitary inspection
of the Borough, district and house-to-house, has enforced so much
action on the part of owners that this difficult type of property has been
kept, by constant effort, inhabited; and even though the accommodation is in
some of the areas obviously undesirable and worn out, yet the structure has
hitherto been kept safe, dry and free from vermin, and the drainage and sanitary
accommodation sound, and it is essential that the constant carrying out of repairs
with which the Sanitary Inspectors are concerned should not cease, or be hindered
by representations which achieve nothing; moreover, any such scheme as the London
County Council scheme at Shore Road and Stamford Hill, which brings in more
population from outside the Borough is not useful to Hackney.
The County Council housing scheme is so magnificent in its scope and the
efficiency of its management that there is no adverse criticism involved in pointing
out that the very vastness of the problem from the point of view of the London
County Council, who are really dealing with a province, not a county—for the
County of London is only a county in name—results in what may appear to be