21 HOUSES TO BE DEMOLISHED

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27750, 30 August 1955, Page 10

21 HOUSES TO BE DEMOLISHED

Order By City Council

SEVENTY-SEVEN OCCUPANTS

Twenty-one dilapidated houses in Christchurch were ordered by the City Council last evening to be demolished within six weeks of the end of existing tenancies. The houses, situated in several parts of the city, have 77 persons living in them. There are 12 persons in one, and three are occupied by single men, two of them elderly. To help to solve the problem of providing alternative accommodation, the council agreed to approach the Mininster of Housing (Mr W. Sullivan) and the State Advances Corporation. Special attention, it agreed, must be paid to accelerating housing allocations where applicants live in demolition class houses; to “social problem” family accommodation; and to accommodation for special groups—old male pensioners and widows with adult sons or daughters. Owners of the houses will be served notice under the Housing Improvement Regulations, 1947, that as it is impracticable to make the houses comply with the regulations, they must pull them down within six weeks of the termination of existing tenancies.

Section 5 of the Housing Improvement Act, 1945, and amendments, set out the duty of a local authority where any house fails to comply with the minimum standard of the regulations, and specify that the authority can require either the repair of the house or its demolition. Repairs or alterations may only be required where it is practicable to make the house comply, having regard to the cost of the works and the estimated value of the work.

Continued use of the houses was regarded as a threat to social, moral and health standards by the council, which took the report on the houses and discussion in committee.