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98
The figure of 898 dwellings required is the irreducible minimum
which either the Borough Council or the County Council is required
to provide under the Act, but it is arrived at by ignoring several
factors which will continue to produce overcrowding, as already
pointed out, because it assumes that sufficient re-allocation of
premises will take place, and that all overcrowded families will be
willing or able to take proper tenancies. Theoretically this
re-allocation will take place because landlords and tenants permitting
overcrowding to remain can be penalised. Actually,
however, the same situation may arise as has arisen under the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891. Under the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891, overcrowding is a nuisance and can be dealt
with summarily under standards contained elsewhere, since a
standard is not fixed under the Act. But although the Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, can be invoked, in actual practice this
is only done where accommodation is available and the tenant is
able to pay for the accommodation. Exactly the same situation
may arise under the 1935 Housing Act.
As regards cases in which overcrowding has occurred as the
result of inability to separate the sexes properly, the County Council
permit the inclusion of only 10 cases, mentioned in Table A—10
families, column 2, second line, living in one room. These are
shown above the line in Table C living in one room, the room being
of sufficient cubic capacity, but in Table A they are shown as
requiring two rooms (column 2, second line). The two rooms are
required because two people of opposite sexes, not being husband
and wife, but of the same family are living and sleeping in one room.
Under the Act, provided a room is habitable, floor area and
number of occupants are the only matters to be considered provided
it is possible to separate the sexes without thereby causing overcrowding
.
As a matter of fact there are 698 families where girl and boy
children over 10 years of age are not sleeping in separate bedrooms
or where children over 10 years of age sleep in the same room as
their parents. These are shown above the line on Form C as not
being overcrowded because the capacity of the dwellings is sufficient
and because by re-arranging the accommodation, that is to say,
using the living room as a bedroom, and/or by arranging that the
male parent sleeps in the same room as the male children and the
female parent with the female children the sexes will be separated,
and the floor area will be sufficient.
In spite of the fact, however, that this re-arrangement of
sleeping accommodation cannot be enforced, and consequently that
the bedrooms according to the standard of the Act are overcrowded,