The War on Overcrowding Sir Hilton Young's new Housing Bill
appears on a day when nothing but the briefest comment on it here is possible. But for the most part it follows the lines indicated in the Minister of Health's various speeches, the practical application of the principles there formulated being therefore of more interest at this moment than the principles themselves. Primarily the Bill marks the opening of the official crusade against overcrowding, which in future will be a punishable misdemeanour. Overcrowding wherever it exists today will be exposed, on the basis of a definite schedule—three persons to two rooms, five to three rooms, and similarly for higher numbers, with separation of the sexes above: 10 years of age—and where exposed abolished. A feature of the new scheme is the provision made for the construction of large blocks of flats' where rebuilding on the site of condemned houses is necessary. This, in spite of the objections to block dwellings, is inevitable, and most of the existing objections can in fact be mitigated by wise forethought in planning. If, as the Bill contemplates, an average family can be housed, in conditions that preclude overcrowding, at a weekly rent of ifs. 4d.. in London and 10s. elsewhere inclusive of rates, with the aid of a subsidy of £9 a year from State and local authority combined, a Very notable socialr-eform will have been effected. But many details in the Bill must be reserved for further examination.
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