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14
Improvement must be remembered as well as the cost to charge on
the rates that would occur from improvement of the Malthouse Area ;
and it is safe to say that, as soon as the latter area is properly
dealt with, there will be a compensating increment to the rates
from the adjoining, and now unprofitable, property in the High
Street. It is sometimes said that, instead of an improvement or
clearance scheme being suggested for this Malthouse Area,
individual houses should be dealt with. The difficulty is that no
one has yet shown how this can be done. A landlord cannot be
made to pull down other people's houses because they block out
the light from his own property; and, as I have repeatedly said,
the intrinsic characteristics of some of the cottages are not so bad.
Some indeed, if placed on the Surrey hills and kept clean, would
make quite nice week-end resorts; dumped away behind the
High Street and the Terrace, cut off from light and air, surrounded
by damp and undrained mud spaces, they make up an area not
very great in size, and only, but easily, to be dealt with, in my
opinion, by a clearance, and rearrangement of the streets and
alleys therein.
In last year's report I went on to say that I hoped some
improvement would be made in the state of the Lilian and Glentham
Roads; in the condition of the area known as Littleworth End ; in
parts of Mortlake High Street, and other places; and that the
proper paving and channelling of White Hart Lane would not longer
be delayed. I am glad to say that the carrying out of the works,
repeatedly urged in these reports, is now in a fair way to be realised.
White Hart Lane, Lilian Road, Glentham Road and Fanny
Road are all to be properly dealt with, and, I have no doubt, in
course of time, the part locally known as Charlestown, also.
At Littleworth End an enormous improvement, resulting in
the disappearance of some old property and the opening up of