ATTACK ON SLUMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 8

ATTACK ON SLUMS

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND r ■. ABOLISHING OVERCROWDING WORK UNDER NEW LEGISLATION^ vM I'FROM OUR OWN* CORRESPONDENT j LONDON, Dec. 23 $ From January 1 it will be the duty-, of 1290 local, authorities, more than! 80 per ceut of the total number conJ cerned, to see that all existing case«t of overcrowding are abated as soon as possible, and that new cases, except when unavoidable, are prevented from arising. New Year's Day is the Second Ap. pointed Day under the 1935 Housing Act. This was mentioned by Mr. ]J H. George, Assistant-Secretary to' the Ministry of Health, in a paper he read j before the Royal Sanitary Institute in London. In many areas, said Mr. George the abatement of overcrowding must take time, and the authority mighfc have to issue licences authorising temporary fresh overcrowding. But the'" great advantage of a Second Appointed Day being fixed was that fresh cases could not arissi without the knowledge of the authority, because all 'such oases must be reported cither by the landlord or the occupier..

If public opinion were to be enlisted for the abatement of overcrowding he went on. the general public must be able easily to obtain full information as to the new duties placed upon occu-I piers and landlords, and the new powers of local authorities in dealing with overcrowded families must he used in such a way as to give rise to no avoidable hardship.

It was important, for instance, thai: occupiers should not be left in any doubt as to the way in which the per. mitted number for a dwelling affected by sub-letting part of the dwelling. This created two dwellings, and the permitted number for the two was usually less than the permitted number for the whole. In order to keep the public informed! of just how much was being done the , Act now imposed on medical officers the duty of including in all their future reports specific statistical and other information relating to overcrowding in . their area. It was in the light of the medical officers' annual reports -that the Ministrv would be able to judge of the efficacy of the present statutory provisions and to decide when it would be reasonable to raise the present statutory standard of overcrowding, and so to 'take the first of a new series of steps toward the goal of improved hou* jng conditions.