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30
Building operations were commenced during the year at Blue
Anchor Lane, and at the end of 1929, 91 flats were in the process
of erection.
There are four small insanitary areas in the Borough which
urgently require to be dealt with, and are described in the following
table:—
Name of Area.
Acreage.
Number of Working Class
Houses in Area.
Woodland Cottages
.285
10
Tiger Yard
.173
17
Joiners' Arms Yard
.045
6
Levant Street, Island site
.124
18
These properties were officially represented in 1922, and the
Council prepared a scheme which embraced the four areas and
submitted the same to the Ministry of Health. The Ministry,
however, would not pass the scheme as drafted, and stipulated
that alternative accommodation should be provided in new buildings
to give accommodation for the persons to be displaced.
The areas in question are quite unsuitable for use for the
erection of new dwelling-houses. It has not been found possible to
provide new accommodation in the vicinity of the areas, but the
Council has, through a Sub-Committee of the Housing Committee,
been considering the possibility of entering into an arrangement
with the London County Council to provide accommodation in the
blocks of buildings now being erected in the Borough.
Negotiations are still proceeding in this direction, but up to
the time of the preparation of this report it has not been found
possible to arrive at a satisfactory understanding.
Overcrowding.
The difficulty which tends to defeat all efforts to solve the
problem of overcrowding is perhaps not so much the shortage of
houses as the inability of poor people with large families to pay
an economic rent.
What is required is a type of dwelling to span the gap
between the slum and the tenement occupied by the more
prosperous class of worker which can be rented by the poorer
classes of the community.
It would seem that the most suitable provision to meet the
requirements of this class is the storey-dwellings type of accommodation.
There are, of course, arguments against the advocacy
of the erection of dwellings of this description, but there is a