View report page

39
houses dealt with have been too few when the number
of those in the borough that require attention is
considered. This is certainly not due to any want
of energy on the part of your Sanitary Inspectors,
who have worked assiduously to improve existing
conditions; but, after the discharge of their ordinary
routine duties they have not much time to give to
the systematic house to house inspection of their
districts, and it must be remembered that the time
occupied in the preliminary inspection of a dilapidated
house is but a small fraction of that spent in re-visits,
interviewing owners and builders, and in carefully
supervising the execution of work which otherwise
would, in many cases, be badly scamped. Inspector
Drake has recently been instructed to give
his whole time to a house to house inspection of certain
selected streets, but the Council should at once appoint
two additional temporary inspectors for, say, two
years, which would make it possible to deal, within a
reasonable time, with the worst streets in the borough.
But whatever the Sanitary Authority may do by
vigorous exercise of their powers towards improving
housing conditions, there still remains the problem of
the confirmed slum dweller. In too many instances
houses which were thoroughly renovated have, within
a few months, owing to the negligence and unclean
habits of the occupiers, reverted to their former condition,
and been again brought under the notice
of your officers. Something may, perhaps, be done
to prevent this, by the rigid enforcement of the bylaws,
which we are waiting for,"for houses occupied by
more than one family," which deal with the responsibilities
of the occupier; but more is to be hoped for
from the skilled and sympathetic management of house
property. There is abundant evidence of the improvements
that have been effected in insanitary areas
without any reconstruction scheme, by what is known
as the Octavia Hill method, which has been continued
by the members of the Women House Property Managers'
Association. A good example of this, though on
a small scale, may be seen in Heckfield Place. The
attention of the Council was drawn in 1913 by a special