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for Bethnal Green residents outside the Borough and
from other schemes in the Borough which had not
then matured. Furthermore, the large Redevelopment
Area in the North and East wards has yet to
be carried out.
REDEVELOPMENT AREA.
In view of the special importance in the future
replanning and rehousing of the Borough, I append
some extracts from the joint report of the Housing,
Public Health, Town Planning and Highways
Committees of the London County Council with
regard to this matter.
(i) Housing Conditions in the East End of London
Housing conditions in a large part of the East End of
London, particularly in the Metropolitan Boroughs of Stepney,
Bethnal Green and Shoreditch, have for many years been
regarded with the gravest concern. Past efforts at reconstruction
have been confined to the worst of the unhealthy
areas and, owing to the lack of suitable rehousing accommodation,
progress has been slow. For the rest, reliance has
been placed on improved public health administration, which,
while affording a large measure of amelioration, is powerless
against the evils of cramped planning, bad internal arrangement
of houses, structural decay and major sanitary defects.
Up to the present it has been possible to do little more than
touch the fringe of the problem, which now becomes increasingly
important and urgent owing to the demand for an improvement
in the general standard of housing accommodation,
the inauguration of the campaign against slums, and overcrowding,
and the application of the principles of town planning
to built-up areas.
In the heart of the East End the development, in the main,
is more than 100 years old, and in some parts considerably
older. The practical difficulties of dealing with the problem
in this district are vastly increased by the sporadic introduction
of industry and commerce into what were originally
residential areas. The houses which are unfit for human
habitation constitute a considerable percentage of the whole.
Many are in clearly-defined areas of sufficient extent to form
sites for the erection of block dwellings, but the remainder
are in small groups scattered in large numbers over an extensive
area. The larger aggregations of unfit houses can