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Of the 37,112 families found to be not overcrowded, 3,664 or 8.9 per
cent, were occupying accommodation of the minimum size required by
the Act ; of this number 286 families will, by reason of children attaining
the age of one or ten years, become overcrowded within the next two years.
The Estimate of Additional Accommodation required
to Abate the Overcrowding.
In estimating the amount of additional accommodation to be
provided several factors had to be taken into consideration, among them
being (a) the number of dwellings vacant at the time of the survey which
might be utilised for rehousing the overcrowded families. In this
connection it should be borne in mind that there must always be a margin
of vacant accommodation owing to the changes in tenancy, and that this
margin could not be taken into account as being available for the relief
of overcrowding. No reliable statistics were available to determine just
what this margin should be, but experience suggests that it is probably
2 per cent, of the total accommodation in the Borough. As, however,
the amount of accommodation found to be vacant was less than 2 per cent.,
it was disregarded in estimating the amount of additional accommodation
required. (6) The number of dwellings to be vacated by the overcrowded
families which would be available for re-housing the smaller overcrowded
families, (c) The number of overcrowded families for whom accommodation
would be provided by re-housing operations under the Housing
Act, 1930; and (d) the number of rooms which, combined with others
would be available to increase the letting in a house where more than one
overcrowded family was found.
In order that the estimates submitted by the various boroughs should
be calculated on a uniform basis, the London County Council agreed with
the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee a method for
calculating from the information obtained during the survey, the amount
of additional accommodation required.
This method may be summarised as follows:—
(1) The accommodation required for re-housing all the families
overcrowded on the standard of Table I in the First Schedule to the
Housing Act, 1935, was determined from the information obtained by
the completion of Form C.
(2) As the number of 1-room and 2-room dwellings to be vacated
by overcrowded families will be considerably in excess of the number
of such dwellings required, no provision was made for additional dwellings
of these sizes.