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82
HOUSING.
CLEARANCE AND REHOUSING.
It is now possible to report that as far as the Public Health Department is
concerned the first five-year programme of "Clearance" is completed since the
'Ministry of Health Inquiry into the Broadway Area Representation was closed on
November 3rd, 1936. The second programme is proceeding rapidly.
It is gratifying also to be able to report that to the end of 1936 confirmations
have been received from the Ministry of Health of all Clearance Areas represented
by me and upon which Inquiries have been held. Some details of these are given
in the following pages, showing the position of each individual Clearance Area
at the end of 1936.
It is desirable that there should be some record of the buildings cleared, and
some details of their condition and construction; some photographs of buildings
are also recorded so that this report is supplemental to the 1930 report which
dealt specially with the housing problem.
All the Clearance Areas represented by me are now referred to the London
County Council in the preliminary stage to enable that Council to make inspections
of the Areas. In addition to the Clearance Areas wholly dealt with by the
Borough Council, individual inspections and enquiries are made by myself and
my staff and evidence prepared in support of the County Council at the Public
Inquiries of the Ministry of Health as regards those Areas "taken over" by the
London County Council.
It is impossible, almost without exception, since the Metropolitan Borough
of Hackney was constituted to find an annual report of the Medical Officer of
Health that does not give some mention of unsatisfactory housing in the Borough
and the practical impossibility of placing that housing in a satisfactory condition
by the abatement of nuisances under the Public Health (London) Act or under the
Housing Acts prior to 1925. My predecessors as well as myself have pointed out
from time to time the practical impossibility of dealing with unhealthy and slum
areas under previous "nuisance," "closure" and "demolition" powers wthich did
not then require simultaneous provision of accommodation for rehousing the persons
evicted. Previous Acts such as Housing of the Working Classes Acts and the
Housing and Town Planning Acts made it possible to close and demolish but there
was no provision of rehousing accommodation. For instance, Dr. King Warry
pointed out that Clearance schemes under those Acts actually made the outlook
considerably worse in many respects.
The position, however, was changed by the Housing Acts of 1925 and 1930,
as regards rehousing and clearance procedure in a way tlhat has brought about
most desirable improvements.
It is perfectly true that the abatement of nuisances, repairs, attention to
dampness as far as possible, drainage—the work of District Sanitary Inspection,
in short—greatly alleviated the difficulties arising from badly-planned, worn out
dwellings, and this work of Sanitary Inspection has been most carefully and
thoroughly done, but always there has been the practical difficulty of renovating
the worn-out building and of accommodating tenants who, if that building were
pulled down, would be worse off than before.
Consider the evidence given at the local inquiries as to what constitutes a
satisfactory dwelling. In order to get an idea, for instance, of what the East
Street Area houses really were, imagine three boxes placed one over the other,
the lowest box sunk into the ground, entrance to the middle box at street level,
opposite the lowest box a 4ft. area containing a water tap, and under the pavement