Annual report (abridged) on the Health of the Borough for the year 1944.

  • St. Pancras (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1945]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Annual report (abridged) on the Health of the Borough for the year 1944. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Saint Pancras. Your Worship, Ladles and Gentlemen, I have pleasure in presenting to you my first Annual Report upon the conditions of health in the Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras. In accordance with instructions received from the Ministry of Health this report in in an abridged form and is chiefly a compilation of statistical Information. In that I commenced duties In the middle of October it will be realised that most of the Information contained herein concerns matters that occurred before my appointment, and there have only been months upon which I can speak from personal knowledge. Although this report is for the year 1944 it is nevertheless written In the latter part of 1945 and it is impossible to be unbiased by matters that have arisen in this year marked by peace not only in Europe, but throughout the world, for there can be no excuse now for postponing the planning of those services which are essential to the health of the district. Before the end of 1944 it became apparent to me that one could not expect to see St. Pancras the healthy borough it should be unless it was realised that the paramount need of its citizens was adequate housing, a fact well recognised not only by the Health Committee, but also by the Housing Committee and every member of the Council. So much was this the case that I was asked as one of my first tasks to carry out a survey of the condition of the property in the whole borough. This survey showed that there were approximately 25,500 dwellings of which roughly 18,000 were houses and 7,500 self-contained flats. These dwellings were divided into those which were In such a condition that they should be demolished within 10 years, those that should be demolished within 20 years and 30 years and those with a satisfactory life of over 30 years. No less than 6,000 dwellings were such that they should be demolished on grounds of health and structure within the next 10 years, i.e. nearly one quarter of the property of the borough. Approximately 5,000 had a reasonable life of 10/20 years and 4,500 with a life of 2O/3O years, leaving approximately 10,000 dwellings with a satisfactory life of over 30 years and this Included most of the self-contained flats. This gives some idea of the problem - the primary problem which on grounds of health must receive the consideration of the Council. It would appear that within 20 years over 40% of the borough should be rebuilt.