View report page

14
the Home Secretary their opinion that the sum asked for
the land (£ 180,000) was altogether prohibitive. To this
communication the Home Secretary replied, that the sites
were not offered at a valuation made by him or his officers,
but, his action was guided by the provisions of 39 and 40
Vict., cap. 21, sec. 34. The Vestry then suggested in
reply that the Government should introduce a Bill on the
lines of Lord Salisbury's separate Report in connection with
the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working
Classes, viz.—"That the sites should be sold at cost price
to some authority or trust that will build workmen's
dwellings upon them, or upon other similar sites obtained
by exchange for portions of them."
From a report of the Metropolitan Board of Works,
supplied to them by that Board, the Yestry learnt that the
Home Secretary had enquired whether there was any probability
of the Board being willing to enter into negociations
with the Prison Commissioners for the purchase of the sites
or either of them with a view to the erection of Artizans
Dwellings thereon. The Board, however, having in view
the fact that in connection with the Gray's Inn Road Improvement,
and the New Street from Gray's Inn Road to
St. John Street, 11 sites, comprising an area of 160,928
square feet and providing accommodation for nearly 3,000
persons, have been or will be reserved in the near neighbourhood
of the prisons, did not deem it expedient to enter
into such negociations. The Board also in its reply to the
Home Secretary endorsed the opinion of the Yestry that
a portion of the site should be reserved as an open space.
The Yestry then took into consideration, at a Special
Meeting on the 8th July, 1886, the whole question of the
utilization of the sites, and they directed that the Prison
Commissioners be asked to state the terms upon which they
would be prepared to sell the sites for the purpose of erect-