[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Ashton-under-Lyne Borough.

  • Ashton-under-Lyne (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Ashton-under-Lyne Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/44 (page 25)
    TOWN HALL CHAMBERS, ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE. TO THE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL OF THE BOROUGH OF ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg to submit herewith my Annual Report for the year 1952. The work of administering the Food Bye-laws continued to be one of the most important duties of your Sanitary Inspectors and it will be observed that 1,613 inspections were made during the year. The preliminary housing survey was continued during the year and it is hoped that it will be completed during 1953. At the moment it is possible to say that, excluding houses owned by the Corporation, 12,306 houses have been visited and of these, 143 were found to be legally overcrowded, using the standard laid down in the Housing Act, 1936. This figure means that 0.01% of the houses were overcrowded. These 143 houses were occupied by 213 families comprising 748 adults and 282 children. Another interesting point was that in these 12,306 houses there were 1,906 houses with one bedroom not usually used. 50 houses had two bedrooms not usually occupied and 8 houses had three or more bedrooms vacant. The principal object of the survey was, of couse, to deter- mine the number of houses which were, in the opinion of your officers, unfit for human habitation. It is obvious from the reports so far received, many hundreds of houses in the town are in such a state that they cannot be repaired at reasonable expense. It may be that some owners will be prepared to recondition their property regardless of this proviso, but it must be recognised that if a house is in such a con- dition that the expense of its repair is unreasonable in accordance with the provisions of the Llousing Acts, then there is no alterna- tive but to demolish or to accept an undertaking not to use the dwelling for human habitation. From the figures already available, and I must again emphasise that these are subject to further scrutiny, it is obvious that the slum clearance programme is one which will occupy the attention of the Committee and its officials for very many years, and while as far as possible the worst houses should be dealt with first, it may not always be practicable to do so.