Manual on unfit houses and unhealthy areas / Ministry of Health.

Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual on unfit houses and unhealthy areas / Ministry of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/122 (page 17)
    Improvement schemes should be comprehensive. 5. Local Authorities should aim at more than mere patchwork proposals in preparing any improvement scheme. Tio make a scheme efficient, the Local Authority may include lands adjoining the unhealthy area even though the buildings on those lands cannot be regarded as unhealthy. Measures for rendering a scheme “ efficient’ include such as are necessary in order to secure good planning: of the site or to obtain reasonable amenities. Included also are any measures essential for bringing the planning of the area into line with any general town plan which has been laid down for the district. It should, however, be understood that a scheme for dealing with an unhealthy area cannot be used for any general acquisition of property going quite beyond what should be the real purpose of the scheme. It is advisable for a Local Authority to consult the Regional Commissioner before elaborating the details of a proposed improvement scheme. ‘Town Planning to be considered. 6. Slum clearances are likely at best to be costly. Unwise indeed, therefore, were it to undertake them without having regard to the future and fundamental needs of the town or district. It should be a truism that no large cleared area should be replanned without having in mind what is to be the future development of the town—where the big main roads are to run, where are to be the business quarters, where the factories, where the residential quarters, where the parks and playgrounds. Towns change; any large alterations should be in accord with the gradual growth, otherwise it may be found, years hence, that costly expenditure now has become a serious hindrance to the then urgent needs of the town. For these reasons, and for others, Local Authorities are strongly counselled to have before them a plan, in broad outline at least, of the future development of the town before they undertake any large scheme of improvement; delay need not be, and should not be, incurred. Partial clearance schemes. 7. There may be some unhealthy areas which can be dealt with, for the time being at least, by improvement schemes under which only a small proportion of the houses are pulled down, here and there, to improve ventilation and to secure more open space, while the remaining houses are, where necessary, put into better condition. It may seem contradictory that a Local Authority should acquire an area as unhealthy and then not proceed to demolish the buildings, but to use them for dwellings. There is, however, no contradiction. The area as it stands is unhealthy. The most satisfactory way of dealing with it is by treating it as a whole, and by an improvement scheme for the whole. Houses are pulled down for the good of the area aS a whole. With these betterments, added to improvements to the houses which remain, added also to better management (of which more will be said later), the unhealthiness of the area may be removed, and that without excessive cost. 8. The Ministry, therefore, suggest that Local Authorities should consider, particularly at this time of pressure, whether, in suitable cases, schemes of this type are advisable. At the same time there should be no illusion on the matter. Schemes of this type are adapted only for certain kinds of areas, where there is not grave congestion of buildings and where the slum conditions are not of the most serious character. There must be clear evidence that, by such a Aes of partial clearance, the unhealthy character of the area will be ferngeee In many cases, schemes may be adopted providing for the retention and repair of some houses as an intermediate measure. While fully recognising that the area cannot be treated with complete success except by wholesale clearance, yet. having regard to the present pressure of more urgent needs, it may be reasonable for the moment to be content with a scheme which will remove the graver ills, leaving the fuller remedy for a more convenient time. (B3756) . B ~