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37
In my Annual Report for 1946 I stated:—
"The greatly increased number of complaints of housing
defects, coupled with the greater difficulty of securing compliance
with notices due to the shortage of labour and materials,
and the building licence restrictions, is placing a continuous
strain upon the reduced staff of sanitary inspectors, and an
attempt to deal with these complaints can only be made at
the expense of other functions such as the routine inspection
of factories and shops. To cope adequately with the deteriorated
condition of property in order to bring the accommodation
back to a reasonable standard of fitness is a task which
would take some years to accomplish with a normal staff of
inspectors and without the difficulties which now handicap us.
In fact, even a return to the pre-war number of inspectors
would be inadequate. It can only be hoped that an easing
of the shortages and the employment of an adequate staff
within a reasonable space of time will enable the Department
to take satisfactory steps to improve the unhappy conditions
under which so many of the public are living at the present
time.''
Nevertheless, despite the difficulties arising from the shortage
and high price of building labour and materials, every endeavour
has been made to improve the housing conditions in the borough
and steady advance was made during the years following the immediate
post, 1914-1918 war years and the outbreak of war in 1939.
By 1919 the national conscience had become aware of the
wide-spread evils of slum areas and the fact that something more
than local action was necessary to sweep the slums away. As a
result the first attempt by the Government to spread over the whole
community the cost of rehousing from insanitary areas was made
in the Housing Act, of 1919. The assistance was, however, on a
very limited scale and it was necessary for local authorities' housing
schemes to show a deficit equal to the product of a penny rate before
any assistance could be claimed.
The position of Councils acquiring land and buildings in an
unhealthy area for the purpose of clearance and reconstruction was
considerably eased by later legislation which freed them from
the obligation to pay compensation for the buildings in the area,
and the Councils had to pay only for the land, and then the compensation
was based on value of the land when cleared and available
for development in accordance with the Byelaws of the authority.
Thus, if the local authority satisfied the Minister of Health that
it was desirable that the land should be used for rehousing or for
open spaces, the compensation was fixed, not on the full market
value of the land irrespective of restrictions, as had been the case