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7. Obstructive Buildings—
(a) Number of representations made
(Section 38 of the Housing Act of
1890)
Nil
(b) Number of buildings demolished
Nil
(c) Number of representations still under
consideration
Nil
8. Staff engaged in Housing Work, with brief duties
of each officer—
Medical Officer of Health.
Chief Sanitary Inspector.
Eight District Sanitary Inspectors.
Report of Medical Officer of Health on the Housing,
Town Planning Act, 1919.
To the Battersea Borough Council.
The question of the provision of new houses for the
working classes will have to be considered by the Council in
connection with their proposals to be set out in an Outline
Scheme in the manner prescribed by the Ministry of Health.
As pointed out in my previous reports to the Health Committee,
it is obligatory under the provisions of the New
Housing Act: (1) To ascertain the needs of their district in
regard to housing, and (2) to provide new houses where
necessary.
That there is at the present time in Battersea a demand
for houses, does not, I think, admit of dispute. Building has
been at a standstill in the Borough since 1914, and during the
ten years, .1909-1919, only 326 (small) houses have been built,
mainly on the Battersea Rise Estate. During the same period
a considerable number of working-class houses have been
demolished in the lower Wards. Small groups of houses, totalling
in the aggregate to a considerable number, have been
acquired and pulled down for the extension of existing railway
and factory premises, or for the extension or provision
of schools by the London County Council, Education
Authority, without any special provision for rehousing the displaced
inhabitants. The fact, moreover, that there is practically
not a single empty working-class house in the Borough
is further proof of the acuteness of the housing shortage. At
the same time, it is clear, as pointed out in my previous
reports to the Health Committee, that there is comparatively
little ground available in the Borough for the erection of new
houses, a matter of importance when the Council comes to