London Launches Biggest Plan of Slum Clearance

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 5

London Launches Biggest Plan of Slum Clearance

LONDON, Dec. 20. The tackling of London’s slum problem on an unprecedented scale is foreshadowed by tho London County Council’s endorsement of its housing committee’s plan for immediate launching of what is claimed to be Britain’s biggest single slum clearance scheme. Au area of 50 acres in Bethnal Green is to be completely redeveloped, at a cost of £1,750,000. Altogether 4700 persons of low incomes will be taken out of overcrowded homes and rehoused in modern apartment blocks, and move than 100 commercial workshops and 120 shops will be provided with new premises. Larger Schemes on Way. But this huge scheme is, the Monitor learns from the L. C. C. merely a herald of even greater efforts. It is the first London scheme under the Housing Act of 1935. The Council, it is understood, hopes to see how the new provisions of tho 1935 act work in practice and when sufficient experience has been gained, to consider dealing with “larger schemes along the lines of the first one.” The 1935 Act was intended to expand the best features of previous bills, without hurting private enterprise. It lays down a definition of overcrowding, makes provision for surveys where such overcrowding is suspected, and makes overcrowding thus defined illegal. A subsidy is offered wherever the cost ol new and better accommodation is likely to be so high that rents will be be yond the wages of the persons in the district. Redistribution of Industries. The L. C. C.’s new Bethnal Green development plan includes the rearrangement of roads, replanning of open spaces, aud redistribution of industrial and residential districts over the whole area, which is itself as much as one-twelfth, of the whole Borough of Bethnal Green. One of the major problems resulting from the scheme will be tho housing of tenants while present homes are being pulled down, and the redistribution of industry in appropriate zones. Experience gained in this scheme will be used, the L. C. C. informs the Monitor, in the planning of further large-scale slum clearance schemes as soon as possible.