UPPER HUTT HOUSING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 59, 7 September 1937, Page 5

UPPER HUTT HOUSING

"DEPLORABLE OVERCROWDING"

"I have to report a very deplorable state of overcrowding in several of the. houses inspected during the past two weeks," stated Mr. H. Waring, housing survey officer, in his report to the meeting of the Upper Hutt Borough Council last evening.

He stated that maiiy more houses would be overcrowded shortly when children reached the age of ten years, and, according to the housing regulations, separate rooms in which to sleep would have to be provided for children of opposite sex. Many mothers were using their sitting-rooms to meet the difficulty, owing to the lack of larger houses in the borough. Bathing accommodation in some homes was very unsatisfactory, with old tin baths in the washhouse across the yard and sometimes leaking roofs and rotten boards. Up to date he had inspected 533 houses, details of which were as follows:—Satisfactory, 486; unsatisfactory, 36; requiring demolition, 11; overcrowded, 16.

Mr. R. H. Ashford, housing survey officer for the West Ward, stated that he had been struck, during his tour of inspection by the poor drainage in some places. He had inspected 118. houses^—satisfactory 103, unsatisfactory 14, requiring demolition 1, overcrowded 1. ■ . ■ ■■■.•' . -.'