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Table B. "Estimated number of vacant dwellings available."
In Table B I state that it is "impossible to give any accurate
information" as to the estimated number of vacant dwellings
available for the rehousing of overcrowded families. The following
are the reasons for this statement:—
During the enumeration the number of rooms in the Borough
found at the first visit to be vacant was 751. To have recorded this
figure as the number of vacant rooms available for overcrowded
families would have been misleading since it was found that in
many instances rooms were vacated and re-occupied even during
the short period between enumeration and measuring. It is also
not possible to say what accommodation those rooms would provide
because the only rooms we were permitted to measure were those
which were returned as ''doubtful.'' It should be remembered that
the County Council paid half the expenditure and issued the
instructions as to methods and conditions of working.
It follows that the only premises where it is possible to fix
the permitted number of persons are those in which the rooms were
measured as being "doubtfully overcrowded."
The preliminary investigation has permitted 58,248 families
being placed on one side at the present time as not being overcrowded
under the standard of the Act. No question arises as regards the
rationing out of surplus accommodation in premises occupied by
these not overcrowded families except that a landlord will have the
right to be informed as to the number permitted in his dwellings
and to increase that number to the extent that the 1935 Act permits.
The figure as to additional dwellings required is arrived at
from consideration of the overcrowded dwellings on the supposition
that a shuffling of families takes place so that appropriate use is
made of the accommodation now occupied by these families. Thus
in Table F it is stated that all the required one-room and two-room
dwellings will be available in existing accommodation. They are
not now available. At the present time 1,476 of those dwellings
(Table B, column 5—the first and second figures) are overcrowded.
The financial state of overcrowded persons has not been ascertained,
and cannot be ascertained without additional powers, but
it may confidently be expected that one great obstacle to the shuffle
of families envisaged in this re-allocation of housing accommodation
will be the fact that many of the tenants living in overcrowded
conditions in the smaller tenements will not be able to afford the
higher rent required for the larger tenements. This fact alone will
go some way towards nullifying the Act as regards the total
abatement of overcrowding which is the end in view.